


The Fourth Wall

by anavoli



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Breaking the Fourth Wall, Fanart, Fanfiction, Gen, Humor, Parody
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-10
Updated: 2015-04-05
Packaged: 2018-01-15 07:39:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 22
Words: 38,478
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1296802
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anavoli/pseuds/anavoli
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The characters of SNK discover the world of fanfiction and fanart. And laptops have tremendous killing qualities.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Laptops Can Kill Titans

**Author's Note:**

> This is also posted on Fanfiction, but I wanted to put it on AO3 as well. Reviews are appreciated!

One day, Mikasa finds Eren crying in the corner. She’s concerned – the last time Eren shook and cried like this was when the Titans killed his mother – but she’s also slightly annoyed because it’s very likely that he could just be being melodramatic again.

“What’s wrong, Eren?” she asks, kneeling beside him.

He looks up at her, eyes wide and bloodshot. He’s clutching something in his arms, but he drops it on the ground when he turns to look at her. Mikasa is surprised. It’s a laptop (FROM THE FUTURE), and she wonders where on earth he got such a thing.

Eren shakily looks her in the eye and whispers in a hoarse voice, “I don’t like gay sex.”

Mikasa raises an eyebrow. She picks up the laptop from the ground, opens it up, and stares at the screen. Her eyes widen.

Then she slowly stands up, walks out the door, and proceeds to find Levi. And kick him.

Levi is very confused (and pissed) as to why Mikasa just kicked him in the balls.

“You’re lucky I don’t castrate you,” she simply says. “Never touch Eren. Ever.”

And so Levi proceeds to find Eren. That brat is going to die. 

Eren is still curled up in the corner. He squeaks in horror when he sees Levi, who sees the laptop still open on the ground. Curious, he reads what’s on the screen. 

Then he screams like a girl, picks up the laptop and proceeds to throw it out the window. It hits a nearby titan on the head and it dies instantly (remember: Yaoi kills, kids!).

Levi runs off and proceeds to take a shower. Again and again, until all the soap is used up. He will never be clean again.

It takes him months before he can see Eren without shrieking and promptly running towards the shower.

Meanwhile, the silver laptop has somehow managed to find its way into the hands of none other than Jean Kirstein. It’s quite indestructible, it seems, though it’s evidently useful for fighting titans. He opens it up. It’s still on the page Eren left it at, and when Jean reads it, he proceeds to go and burn his eyeballs out. But then he comes back, curiosity getting the better of him. If there are stories written about his captain and his rival, then there must be some about everyone else.

He finds one with the summary: Mikasa finally can’t hold back her feelings for Jean. It’s rated M. He wonders what that means. M for… marvelous?

Halfway through the story he can’t take it anymore and falls backwards with a nosebleed.

Sasha happens to walk by and notices Jean on the ground, blood dripping from his nose. She takes the laptop, reads it, and bursts out laughing.

“Jean, you pervert!” she exclaims. She hits the backwards arrow and reads some other hilarious stories, then rushes off to find Connie.

“Connie! You have to see this!” Sasha bursts into the door, potato in one hand (she stopped by the kitchen for a snack) and laptop in another. No one may ever know how she didn’t drop anything. Ymir and Krista are there as well, and everyone looks up in surprise. 

“Check this out!” she says excitedly, plopping down on the ground. “There are stories about everyone! Some are really funny, and I caught Jean reading one about him and Mikasa doing some… questionable activities.

They (well, mostly Sasha and Connie) laugh for hours over Reiner wearing a dress for Halloween (whatever that was) and the misadventures of the 104th Trainees Squad.

“Look, this one has art that goes with it!” Sasha says, clicking on the link. Everyone’s eyes bug out when they see Eren drawn with the bottom of his shirt in his mouth, lying in a suggestive position.

Connie and Sasha cover their eyes in horror. “Oh, hell no!” Connie shrieks. Krista squeaks and looks away as well. Ymir isn’t exactly fazed by the picture, but she looks at the ground anyways, thinking, There’s no way Jaeger is that muscular.

But the next picture they come across is one of Krista and Ymir gets angry, wondering who the heck drew that picture and walks off in a huff, dragging her blonde friend with her. 

The next day, however, when the four of them see any one of their friends, they burst out laughing. Levi wonders what the heck is wrong with them, but then again, they’ve always been weird. 

Somehow the laptop ends up in Armin’s arms. After one experience with a very awkward M-rated story, he stays away from them, but instead analyzes all the pairings of people and ultimately decides that Mikasa may or may not be in love with Eren but he will never be in love with Jean. 

He also finds some well-written stories about the titans and how they came to be, and bookmarks them for further analysis. He considers showing them to Hanji, but she might go berserk over them (she’s already crazy enough) so instead he just stows the laptop carefully in one of his drawers.

Levi walks around through the rooms for his weekly check. No flaws in any of the girls’ rooms, except for a few suspicious crumbs under Sasha’s bunk. The boys’ rooms are surprisingly clean, and he smirks at this because obviously his message got across last time, when their room wasn’t clean and he gave them double duty for a month.

He quickly checks Armin’s drawers, because although Armin would never do such a thing, sometimes Jaeger will stow things (instead of actually picking up) in his friend’s drawers, thinking Levi doesn’t check there. 

Instead of seeing crumpled clothes, he sees a shiny silver laptop.

Levi screams with horror, opens up the window, and chucks the device out the window, hitting a titan on the head and killing it instantaneously. 

And proceeds to take a shower.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If the Fourth Wall was destroyed by the Colossal Titan.


	2. I Ship Levi and Cleaning Products

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This doesn't really have anything to do with fanfiction or fanart, but... phones from Wall Rose?  
> Also Levi dancing. :D

“I don’t know where it went,” Armin says. He, Mikasa, and Eren are walking through the town for their weekly outing.

Eren shudders. “I’m glad it’s gone,” he says. He will never be able to forget the things he read.

“Why do you want it anyways?” Mikasa asks. She narrows her eyes as she thinks about that horrid laptop again. 

“There were some good theories about the titans,” Armin replies. “I don’t know where they came from but I was going to think about them more. But now I have no access to them.” Suddenly, he says, “Hey, isn’t Jean’s birthday soon? We could bake him a pie!” He walks over to the stall. “And look, the apples are half off!”

Armin considers buying the apples, and Eren says, “I don’t care about that horse face. Do what you want.”

Mikasa looks around and then narrows her eyes.

“The Garrison has been slacking off again,” she mutters. They’re standing by Wall Rose, and as Mikasa points it out, they can see that there is a sizable crack in the wall.

“Hey, what’s that?” Eren asks, looking closer into the gap. “I think there’s something there.”

“Let me see,” Armin says. “Hey, there is.” He puts a hand in the gap, feeling around. It’s a tight squeeze, but he grasps something smooth and solid and manages to pull it out.

Silence. “Um… what is it?” Eren asks.

It fits in the palm of Armin’s hand, and seems to have some sort of reflective surface. “Hey, I read about this! It’s a phone!”

“A phone?” Mikasa asks, raising an eyebrow.

“Yeah,” Armin replies. “On the laptop, I read some information about this. It helps people communicate. I’ve only seen pictures of it, but I’m sure this is one of them. I can reach the archive that contains those stories too! This is great!”

He presses a button the screen lights up. “Titan Mobile?” Mikasa reads dubiously. “Are you sure we can trust this, Armin?”

“I’ll be careful with it. Don’t worry, Mikasa,” Armin replies. An image of the Recon Corps shows up on the screen. “See, it’s safe.”

“Alright…” Mikasa still isn’t convinced.

“What does it do?” Eren asks. 

“Just watch,” Armin says. The circular logo is located at the bottom of the screen and he presses it again. They hear a click and there is a picture of their feet. “It’s called a camera.”

“Cool,” Eren says. 

“I’ll examine it more later,” Armin says, pocketing the device. 

When they arrive back at HQ, they are greeted by Sasha. “GUYS YOU HAVE TO SEE THIS!!!” she shouts. Mikasa winces as Sasha grabs her by the arm and drags her through the door. Armin and Eren look at each other, shrug, and follow after them. 

They hear music coming from upstairs. “What is going on?” Eren asks. 

“Shhhh!” Sasha puts a finger to her lips and motions for them to follow her as she tiptoes up the stairs. 

The first thing they see is their entire group of friends, huddled around a door. The second thing they see is Levi. Smiling. Holding a broom. And dancing.

Eren’s eyes bug out. Mikasa’s mouth opens slightly in shock. Sasha quickly pulls them to the side. Eren peeks around Jean’s head, who isn’t freaking out about the fact that Mikasa is practically breathing on him because he’s so fixated on watching their captain dance.

The music that is playing is what one might call “punk rock”. They watch as Levi raises the broom, sweeps up some mothballs, and then brings it up like it’s an imaginary guitar, striking a pose as the song ends. No one says anything, afraid that he’ll be alerted to their presence. He will kill them all. 

Another song starts up. This one is different. Everyone sweatdrops when Levi picks up a bottle of Lysol spray and sprays it in the air, making spirally patterns . He moves around the room, gracefully turning in time with the music. Then he twirls in a perfect circle, throwing his arms in the air, and allows the misty spray to drift over him as the last note fades.

And then another song comes on. With a very dramatic and serious look on his face, he picks up a mop and dips it into a bucket filled with soapy water. Then he struts back and forth across the floor in a tango. With the mop as his partner. Evidently, he takes his dancing very, very seriously.

Connie runs down the stairs because he can’t stand it anymore and if he laughs then they will all die a painful death.

But then they realize that beyond the fact that he’s dancing with a mop… he’s actually quite good at dancing.

Then Armin comes up with an ingenious idea. He slowly takes the phone out from his pocket, opens up the camera, and snaps a picture just as Levi dips the broom.

Click! The sound seems to reverberate around the entire castle .

Everyone freezes in terror as Levi turns and sees them. His eyes widen, expression changing from shock to anger, and then to deadly calm. They recognize it – this is the expression he wears when he fights the Titans. And then he growls, “You runts better run.”

They all bolt, almost trampling each other as they try to get down the stairs. 

Levi rounds them up with no problem. They all cringe as they stand in line and he stares them down (up, technically), all except Mikasa, who just glares at him like, I dare you to make me wash everyone’s laundry. Last time he did so, she made sure to wash his cravats with her very red scarf. 

He decides that killing them would be too kind. “You brats deserve to die,” he spat. “I’m going to enjoy watching you suffer.” They waited for the verdict. “I’m handing you over to Hanji. You’re going to help her with her… experiments. For, let’s say, the next month,” he finishes in a deadly whisper.

The reaction is instantaneous. “NO PLEASE. LEVI HEICHOU,” Sasha begs, falling to her knees.

“WE’LL DO ANYTHING FOR YOU,” Connie adds.

“I’ll make you tea whenever you want,” Krista squeaks. 

“I promise to buy you that really expensive cleaning product you eye every time you’re in town!” Armin cries.

“And I’ll do your paperwork for you!” Eren chips in.

“Why the hell would I want you to do my paperwork, Jaeger?” Levi growls.

“I’ll clean that moldy growth behind the stove that’s been bothering you all week!” Jean says. It’s tempting, but Levi still doesn’t concede.

Everyone (even Mikasa) falls to their knees and for once in his life, Levi is looking down at them. “Anything at all! Just please, not Hanji!” everyone begs. He is unfazed.

As if summoned by the very mention of her name, Hanji appears out of nowhere. “Heyyyyy, kiddies!” she exclaims. “How’s it going?”

“Hanji, these brats are going to assist you for the next month,” Levi tells her.

Hanji practically leaps ten feet into the air. “Really? Whoo-hoo! We’re gonna have so much fun!”

Everyone turns a shade paler. One of the recruits begins to pray under his breath. Connie faints. Sasha crawls up to Levi’s feet and grabs them, sobbing loudly. “LEVI HEICHOU. WE’RE SORRY. PLEASE DON’T SEND US TO OUR DEATHS.”

“Deaths?” Hanji says. “Nah, nobody’s gonna die. Unless you die of joy, that is. It’s fascinating, really. You know, I should fill you in, since you’re going to be helping me and all. So I’ve been thinking…” Levi gives them all a glare, telling them to stay put as he walks away, leaving them at the mercy of Hanji’s rambling. 

They would much rather face Levi and his laundry punishments than Hanji. But after a very long day filled with blood and chores, they all crowd into Armin’s room and roll on the floor in laughter in remembrance of Levi’s dancing. After all, he captured it on camera.

But then Armin decides that a video would be much better. And he would gladly take another month of working with Hanji if he could only document Levi’s dancing. 

A couple weeks later the tranquil silence is interrupted by a shrill shriek. An enraged Levi, wielding two Swiffer dusters, chases after Armin. Armin has his 3DMG strapped to his waist (he filmed Levi through the window) and waves his phone in the air as he runs. If looks could kill, Armin would be six feet under.

“Guys I got it!” he shouts, running for his life.

“Arlert, you are going to wish the titans ate you!”


	3. Crack via Tumblr

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Armin discovers Tumblr... and chaos ensues.

“Hey, guys, check this out,” Armin walks over with a laptop in his arms, grinning excitedly.

“Where did you find that?” Sasha asks, bounding over. “I thought the laptop disappeared.” 

“He found it again,” Eren explains. “Outside, just lying in the grass.”

“It was strange,” Mikasa adds. 

“So what did you want to show us?” Jean asks. 

Armin turned the device so the screen faces them. At the top of the page are the words: Intelligence is the New Sexy.

No one can resist raising an eyebrow. “What exactly is this, Armin?” Connie asks. 

“It’s called Tumblr,” Armin begins. “You can interact with lots of other people, and also have your own blog where you can post things and people will follow you.”

“Follow me?” Connie raised an eyebrow. “Why would I want people to follow me?”

“Not like actually following you,” Armin explains. “I mean that they’ll read what you write.”

“So this is your blog,” Jean says.

“Yeah.” Armin grins. “It’s pretty great. People love me.”

“Can I make an account?” Jean asks.

“Sure.” Armin clicks a few things and then hands the laptop over to his friend. “You just have to think of a username and password. Mine is nerdcorps104.”

First, Jean tries: JeanisAwesome. It’s taken. So is EveryoneLovesJean. And everything else he tries. Eren rolls his eyes every time Jean tries something else, but laughs when the username is rejected.

“I’ve got an idea,” he says, grabbing the laptop from Jean, who says, “Hey!” Eren types something and grins when it’s available. He hands the laptop back to Jean. 

“Nice to meet you, Mr. Seabiscuit,” Eren says, smirking. “Or if you prefer, Mrs. Eabiscuit.”

“What the-” Jean realizes what Eren did and glares. “Jeager, do you want to die?”

“It’s not my fault you have a horse face,” Eren replies. “And everything was taken anyways.”

Jean wants to change it but it’s too late because Eren already created the account. Well, Armin knows that Jean could change his username, but it’s pretty funny, so he doesn’t say anything.

“What do we do with a blog anyways?” Ymir asks.

Armin shrugs. “We just talk about our lives, I guess.”

“Great, this will be really helpful,” Jean says, fingers flying as he hurriedly makes his blog. He titles it “How to be Awesome” and everyone rolls their eyes. 

“No one’s going to think you’re awesome with a username like mrseabiscuit,” Eren says, snickering.

“Shut up, Jaeger,” Jean growls. Then he retitles his blog “My Faith in Humanity” and then makes his first post.

 **mrseabiscuit (via My Faith in Humanity):** Eren Jaeger is an idiot.

“Hey, don’t hog it, all of us have to make our own too, Jean,” Sasha says, pushing Jean aside and signing him out.

Eventually they all have their own blogs, even Mikasa, because everyone convinced her. There’s nerdcorps104, mrseabiscuit, foodguru26, theavatarman, 2tall4u, luvdatass, incrediblehulk2, brotherskeeper10, kickurass, freedomangel, and historylover17.

“What are you brats doing?” Levi walks through the door and Armin is able to just barely hide the laptop away before he sees it. They all give him innocent looks. 

“Nothing, Heichou,” they all chorus.

Throughout the week, they all get their profile pictures taken, using Armin’s phone. Connie wants to take a picture as he’s flying through the air on his 3DMG during training, and they somehow manage to get one without Levi noticing but Connie ended up making a really hilarious face. Armin wouldn’t let him take another one though because he didn’t want Levi to notice.

“Hey, you’ve been on your blog for ages!” Reiner says, trying to drag Sasha away from the computer.

“No, I haven’t - hey! That hurt!” Sasha complains, holding the laptop to her chest.

“It’s been an hour, I timed it,” Ymir says, pointing to the clock. “Let us have a turn.”

“You’re just jealous because people love my food more than they love your dumb posts about working out, Reiner.” Sasha blows a raspberry. 

“Hey, Sasha, is it my turn yet?” Connie asks, walking into the scene. 

“Shove off, Connie,” Jean says, following behind. “I haven’t been online all day.”

“We only have a short time before training starts again and I just want to post one thing,” Bertholdt argues.

The bickering continues and Eren, Mikasa, and Armin walk in.

“Sasha, if you spend any more time on the computer you’re going to become a Computer Potato,” Annie says. 

“No one wants to read your stupid blog anyways,” Jean says. “I have way more followers than you.”

“Wait, how many followers do you have?” Eren demands, walking up to Jean.

Jean turns and smirks. “Five hundred.” Eren’s jaw drops. “Jealous, Jeager?”

“Okay, guys, calm down!” Armin says. Nobody listens, but then he puts his fingers into his mouth and whistles loudly. Everyone stops arguing. “I’ll make a schedule,” Armin says. “Then no one can fight over who gets to use the laptop when.”

Armin grabs paper and pencil and writes down a reasonable schedule. There is a little argument over some of the time slots, but a simple glare from Mikasa shuts them all up. 

The next days are spent hiding away with the laptop whenever they get a break from training, sneaking around so that Levi doesn’t catch them. 

“Will you guys please be models for me?” Krista asks during breakfast one morning. “I have a just a couple things designed, and people really want to see them on real people.” The boys shift uncomfortably. The idea of being models is a horrible thought, but Krista is a sweet as the cinnamon rolls they’re eating for breakfast and they don’t have the heart to say no.

“Sure, Krista,” they all say, wondering if they should be dreading this or not. 

It’s evening after a long day of training, and while everyone is cleaning up, Reiner brings up Ymir's blog in conversation. “I hear your relationship advice has been pretty popular, Ymir,” Reiner says. “Pretty good for someone who’s never been in a relationship.”

“I have years of experience, don’t question me,” she says. “And why do you even care, do you have someone you need advice for?”

“No, but Jean does.” Reiner smirks. “I think he takes notes on the things you post.” 

Ymir smirks at this. "Yeah he would, wouldn't he? He's like a lovesick little puppy."

Meanwhile, still out in the training grounds, Bertholdt stands up and brushes dirt off his pants. “Annie, since you’re posting so many fighting tutorials, maybe I’ll be able to beat you someday,” Bertholdt says, smiling.

Annie rolls her eyes. “Sure. But you’re so tall gravity makes you fall on your own anyways.”

That night, Armin sees that Jean looks extremely frustrated right before bed, and seeing that he has a pencil and paper in hand, Armin realizes why. “I think you’d better not use the poetry idea, Jean,” Armin says, “because Mikasa will not be impressed. Did you see the poem she posted yesterday? All the symbolism and imagery and everything, like seriously.” Seeing Jean’s dejected face, Armin pats him on the shoulder. “It’s okay, you’ll find another way.”

Connie particularly likes using the laptop at night (when all the night bloggers are out). “Okay, Connie, what exactly is climate change anyways?” Eren asks, looking over Connie’s shoulder while brushing his teeth. 

Connie shrugs while not looking up from the heated debate he was furiously countering. “No idea. But people are pretty crazy about it.”  
Levi notices that no one has been complaining as much recently. And everyone seems so… chipper, which is just completely suspicious because Eren usually never gets out of bed unless Levi stands over him with a bucket of soapy water.  
But one day he realizes what has been going on. On a weekly round of cleaning, Armin mistakenly leaves the laptop on top of his clothes in his drawer, instead of underneath.

And Levi finds it. 

Levi picks it up and is prepared to throw it out the window. It’s like the thing just keeps coming back like a cursed object. But then he thinks that maybe this has something to do with how strange everyone has been acting, and curiosity gets the better of him. So he cautiously opens it up. If they’re doing things behind his back, then he’s going to know about it. 

Armin has left his blog open in the browser, and Levi scrolls through. Armin has mentioned that all of his other friends have blogs too. Levi realizes that he can follow all of their blogs on his phone. He contemplates this thought. It would be helpful (and amusing) if he could find out what they were talking about. They were being so secretive about it that they obviously posted many things they thought he wouldn’t find out about.

He carefully places the laptop back in the drawer, and Levi walks back to his quarters and makes his very own Tumblr blog. He makes his username “the-tea-god” and titles his blog “Cleanliness if Next to Godliness”.

And then he follows everyone. 

**nerdcorps104 (via Intelligence is the New Sexy):** Whoever can solve this message will get a good laugh: Mivo ies shi tess mivil pf shisi hoent bss siis. :D  
 **historylover17:** Srath ies ciin teid.  
 **nerdcorps104:** Bh, tu zua ievi gofarid kt pat!  
 **incrediblehulk2:** WHAT THE HELL IS THIS EVEN?????  
 **theavatarman:** Wait guys, I’ve got this. It’s “Connie is awesome and everyone loves him”  
 **historylover17:** ………………………….  
 **nerdcorps104:** …Nice try, but no.

 **titanstains (via How to Clean Titan Stains):** Did you know? Singing while you work makes cleaning more efficient!  
 **Reblogged by the-tea-god**

 **brotherskeeper10 (via In Memory of Our Lives):** Birds fly overhead/Going south on their way home/Watching them with a wistful sigh/Wishing we were one of them  
 **foodguru26:** Oooh! Birds!  
 **nerdcorps104:** This is amazing, Mikasa! You write like Whitman :)  
 **incrediblehulk2:** Wow Mikasa! I didn’t know you wrote poetry! But uh… what does it mean?  
 **mrseabiscuit:** Idiot. Appreciate the beauty of this poetry. And don’t worry Mikasa, birds always fly south. It’s kind of a yearly thing.  
 **brotherskeeper10:** You all are uneducated swine…  
 **(reblogged via Solitary Hunter) kickurass:** The best time to go bird hunting is late afternoon. And the best time for bacon is in the early mornings.  
 **brotherskeeper10:** Very funny, Leonhart.  
 **foodguru26:** Actually, bird hunting, like bacon, is best in the early morning as well.

Levi is surprised; Ackerman can write some decent poetry it seems. He reads through some more that she’s written and nods his head in approval.

 **theavatarman (via Connie Is Always Right):** Climate change is very obviously caused by humans!!!! Y’all can go home!

 **mrseabiscuit (via My Faith In Humanity):** Ugh. Levi just kicked my ass for not soaking the dishes in soapy water for five minutes _exactly_.  
 **incrediblehulk2:** Ha. Sucks to suck!  
 **mrseabiscuit:** Shut up. Do you want me to tell him you were the one who tracked mud everywhere?

 **foodguru26 (via Tea is the Sauce of Life):** Just got a brand new pack of tea crackers!!! I have the best hiding place for it all. There happens to be a loose floorboard underneath my bed. But if it gets stolen, I’ll know who it is!!!

 **titanstains (via How to Clean Titan Stains):** Did you just run into a tree, getting blood, sap, and bark all over your clothes? Never fear! This little remedy of coffee and lemon juice will fix it right up!

 **2tall4u (via Being Colossal):** Problem #57: I can’t walk into Heichou’s office without hitting my head at least once.  
 **(reblogged via Kill the Titans) incrediblehulk2:** AHAHAHAHA THIS IS HILARIOUS  
 **(reblogged via In Memory of Our Lives) brotherskeeper10:** Best one yet.

 **freedomangel (via Wings of Fashion):** Here are the pictures you guys requested! Thanks to all my models!  
 **luvdatass:** I think I look the best. Just saying.  
 **theavatarman:** Pfffft. Jean, so sexy.  
 **mrseabiscuit:** Shut up.  
 **nerdcorps104:** Really nice pictures, Krista! Great job!  
 **freedomangel:** Thanks Armin!  
 **kickurass:** Why is Bertholdt cut out of the last picture?  
 **freedomangel:** Ah! So sorry Bertl! I tried to get full body shots of all of you, but you were slightly cut off because I’m short, but the picture was good anyways so I posted it.  
 **2tall4u:** No problem. Gives me more ideas for posts :P  
 **historylover17:** Next time you need help just holler.  
 **freedomangel:** Thanks Ymir :)

One day, Sasha bursts angrily through the door. “Who took my crackers?” she shouts. “I know it was one of you, no one else knows where I hide my food.”

“Us and everyone on Tumblr,” Reiner says, leaning back in his chair.

“I don’t need your sass, Reiner,” Sasha glares. 

“Why would we want your food?” Mikasa says, looking over. “We aren’t the ones who have to be constantly eating.”

Sasha turns and grabs Connie by his shirt. “Was it you?”

“No, I don’t like your crackers, remember? They’re too salty.”

“But they’re my tea crackers,” Sasha groans. 

Passing by the door, Levi overhears their conversation and smirks.

They start to get suspicious when Levi suddenly knows everything. Like the places they stash their things to avoid cleaning. Eren gets busted for tracking mud through the hallways and Jean swears he never told Levi anything. The pranks they try to pull also never work anymore and it’s really frustrating because they’ve wasted at least five pies on a door. 

When they’re not puzzling over how Levi is creepily all-knowing these days, they’re arguing over whose blog is better.

“How can you have five hundred followers?” Eren rages. 

“Face it, Jaeger,” Jean smirks. “You’ll never have half as many followers as I do.”

“I bet you’re cheating, you ass-”

“Girls, girls, both your blogs are good,” Reiner cuts in, smirking. “But mine is better.”

“Well, actually, someone said that of all of us, I’m their favorite,” Bertholdt says. “They also said something about me being totally in character.”

“What does that even mean?” Annie asks. 

“I’ll show you,” Bertholdt says, opening up his blog.

 **silvander4eva:** OMG you’re my favorite person ever!!!!! This is hilarious. And you’re so good at staying in character!

Ymir isn’t impressed. “And what does that mean, exactly?”

“I think it just means that I’m good at what I do,” Bertholdt says. “I mean, you can clearly sense the approval.”

“That’s cool, Bertl,” Krista says, smiling.

The others continue to talk about it, and Levi happens to overhear the conversation. 

Later that day, he almost drops his phone.

 **ererilove:** Come on! Ur totally not in character because the REAL Levi would be in love with Eren! ERERI FOREVER!!!!!!!!!!

Everyone was enjoying a lazy afternoon off as it was raining outside, when suddenly the doors to the dining hall slam open. It was Levi, looking ready to go on a murder spree. Before anyone could start pointing fingers at each other, Levi growled dangerously "You are all banned from Tumblr." His eyes narrow. "FOREVER." Without another word, he slams the doors closed to take an hour long shower.

Once everyone has recovered from the initial shock, Sasha exclaims, “Wait. Levi has a Tumblr? SINCE WHEN?”

“Of course he has a Tumblr,” Armin says. “How else do you think he knew all our secrets? He’s been following us this entire time!”

Instantly, everyone is thinking of everything they’ve posted. “Armin! Why didn’t you tell us?” Eren asks, angry that he got busted for tracking mud into the kitchen.

Armin shrugs. “It was kind of funny.”

“Armin!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In case you're confused on who everyone is, here's a list:  
> nerdcorps104 - Armin  
> mrseabiscuit - Jean  
> foodguru26 - Sasha  
> theavatarman - Connie (because he's bald, so he's like the Avatar)  
> 2tall4u - Bertholdt  
> luvdatass - Reiner  
> incrediblehulk2 - Eren  
> brotherskeeper10 - Mikasa  
> kickurass - Annie  
> freedomangel - Krista  
> historylover17 - Ymir
> 
> Also, try to figure out Armin's code!


	4. Levi Heichou Jokes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The 104th comes up with the best April Fool's Prank

It is a perfectly average March day, and all the recruits are bored out of their minds. It’s a rare day when they have time for themselves, but it’s not particularly sunny outside (everyone’s expecting it to rain) and they’re all feeling lazy. But still bored.

“Guys, I have the perfect April Fools Prank!” The doors burst open, a bundle of energy flying through.

“Connie, if your idea turns out like the last one, I will personally make you clean the dining hall by yourself,” Jean growls.

“No, this one is brilliant, I swear,” Connie says. “And we can kind of make it into a sort of competition!”

“Sounds great,” Sasha says, grinning. “What’s the plan?”

“This.” Connie holds up a pad of paper. “Basically, we’ll put these everywhere – mirrors, doors, cabinets – and each one will have a Levi Heichou joke on it.”

Silence. Making jokes about Levi is always hilarious, but they risk the wrath of their Captain.

“Making fun of Heichou sounds like a really bad idea,” Eren says. “Especially because most of the stuff people will come up with will be about his height.”

“No, we’re going to compliment him, actually,” Connie explains, grinning. “He’ll expect us to be making fun of him, but instead, we’ll be complimenting him.”

“Wait, what?”

“Listen to this one that I came up with.” Connie clears his throat dramatically. “Levi Heichou was born with a blade in one hand and a broom in the other.”

Someone snickers. “Fine, let’s do it,” Jean says, smirking. “I can’t wait to see his face when he reads that.”

“Great,” Connie grins, passing out pieces out paper out to everyone. “Whoever comes up with the best joke is exempt from cleaning duty!”

Which is enough incentive for anyone.

A few days later, Levi walks down to the kitchen to grab another cup of tea. Unfortunately, his box of tea isn’t where he last left it. “Braus,” he growls, searching fervently for his missing tea. Instead of tea, he finds a piece of paper taped to the cupboard door.

“Tea was made when Levi Heichou scared leaves into being delicious.”

He wanted to assign the little punks all garbage duty until he could find the culprit, but what could he say as the reasoning behind the punishment? That they were unexpectedly complimenting him? No, that wouldn't do at all. 

In the end he decided he was more confused than angry, so he let it slide.

Later in the day, when Levi walks into the bathroom, and taped on the mirror is yet another piece of paper.

“The source of the Walls' longevity and protection comes from Levi Heichou's cravat.”

While filing his daily reports, he found yet another note placed in the windowsill of his office. This one reads: “A 30 meter class titan stepped on Levi Heichou. One emerged from the confrontation shorter, and the other dead.”

Apparently these notes have infiltrated every aspect of his life. While going through his daily cleaning ritual, Levi grabs a box of bleach, and there is a paper stuck inside saying, “Levi Heichou blinds the titans with his sparkliness."

Someone really went overboard and folded their paper into a fortune cookie and put it on Levi’s desk. There is also a folded origami cup next to it. The fortune cookie says: “When life gives Levi Heichou lemons, he feeds them to the titans.” Levi almost doesn’t bother unfolding the cup, but when he does, it reveals the message: “Levi Heichou doesn't have to eat food (which furthers our speculations that he is a mutated titan). He survives on tea and the sweat of his inferiors."

"Fear of Levi Heichou is not called achondroplasiaphobia. It's called logic." This one is located on one of the bookshelves and no one understand it except Armin (who made it up) and he cracks up everytime he walks by.

When Connie said that they would put jokes everywhere, he really meant everywhere.

There’s even one on one of the lamps in the main hallway (“Levi Heichou is faster than the speed of light. You're dead before you see him.”), and Hanji doubles over in laughter when she sees it. 

Later that week, Eren and Mikasa walk by the front door to head to the stables and are surprised to see Bertholdt practically rolling on the ground in laughter. Reiner is kneeling next to him, muttering something that sounds like, “Conceal it. Don’t feel it. Don’t let them know.”

“Um, Bert? Are you okay?” Eren asks, walking up. He’s concerned – Bertholdt looks like he might die.

“He’s fine,” Reiner replies, trying (unsuccessfully) to get his friend to stop laughing.

“Uh, okay then,” Eren says, and he and Mikasa walk away.

Bertholdt is still laughing when Annie walks by. “What the heck is going on?” she asks.

Reiner says nothing, only points at the piece of paper that is taped to the doorway.

“Levi Heichou could make the Colossal Titan do the laundry.”

Annie rolls her eyes, slaps Reiner upside the head, and drags Bertholdt away by the ear. “Idiots,” she mutters.

But Bertholdt continues to laugh whenever he does the laundry, and no one understands why.

Everytime Levi opens a drawer or walks through a door, there is another piece of paper. One is stuck to the top of a hallway closet. Who knows what that person was thinking, because Levi can barely reach that high. 

It says: “It's a good thing Levi Heichou is so short. If he was taller, no man would get any of the ladies.” When Mikasa sees this, she feels a great desire to comment, so when no one is around, she writes: “If he was taller then more people would tell him how ugly he is.”

Jean, Armin, and Connie walk by to see what it says.

“Oh dear,” Armin says. “I hope Heichou hasn’t seen that yet.”

“Quick, erase it,” Jean says.

“Dang, it would have been funny,” Connie grumbles. “We haven’t had an Ackerman vs. Rivaille fight in so long. And I’m running out of money! I need something to bet on!”

“Connie, you don’t have money because you bet on stuff,” Jean says. Meanwhile, Armin has erased Mikasa’s comment and is standing on his tiptoes to put it back in its place. 

“Armin, you’re so short,” Jean comments.

“You can’t be short unless you’re shorter than Levi Heichou,” Armin responds, grinning.

“Hey!” Connie protests. 

Meanwhile Eren spots another one: "Once, Levi Heichou leaned against Wall Rose. It took five months to repair the damage."

"Wait, is it saying that Levi is fat?" he asks, confused.

"No, idiot, it means he's strong," Jean says, giving Eren a look like "Fat? Really?"

"Who are you calling an idiot?" Eren growls, grabbing Jean's shirt.

Connie holds out a hand and Sasha sighs, putting some cash in his hand. Sasha bet that it would take Eren and Jean five minutes to get into a fight. Connie bet two.

During dinner that evening, everyone is giggling about their favorite Levi Heichou jokes when the devil himself burst into the room, holding a piece of paper in his hand. 

“Alright, you brats have been sticking these things everywhere. Don't even try to deny it. I want it all cleaned up by tomorrow morning.”

“But Heeeeeeiiiiiiccchhhhooooou!” they protest in unison. 

“Don’t ‘but Heichou’ me.” Levi gives them the glare of the century.

Later that night one very brave soul sneaks into Levi’s room. They freeze for a minute when a floorboard creaks. Levi is known to to be a very light sleeper, one who keeps a dagger under his pillow. Still, they manage to stick a note to his face: “A glare from Levi Heichou once froze the sun for two weeks.”

“Ackerman, I know it was you.” Levi and Mikasa are locked in an intense staring contest during a breakfast of pancakes the next morning.

“It was Sasha,” Mikasa replies. 

“Mikasa! It wasn’t me!” Sasha protests.

“Braus has the grace of an elephant. It was obviously you,” Levi repeats. 

“If it was me then that means that I could kill you in your sleep, which I would gladly do,” Mikasa counters.

Levi remains unfazed. “Then I guess you wouldn’t mind signing papers in my office all day. That’s an order, Ackerman."

Mikasa mutters a few choice words but can't go against orders.

"Whoever did that totally won," Connie says, grinning. But no one knows who exactly went all ninja and stuck that paper on Levi's face, and no one was willing to admit they were the one.

A couple days later, Hanji bursts into Levi's office angrily. "What is the meaning of this?" she shouts, dragging in a terrified and bedraggled Armin. Hanji found him outside running laps but hadn’t gotten to him until he resembled a wet dog. One that fell in a muddy hole and couldn’t get out. 

"They were undermining my authority so I'm punishing them until I find out who did it," Levi explains. “Sticking those ridiculous notes everywhere, sneaking into my room…”

Hanji doesn't say anything, but suddenly she bursts into laughter. The shift in emotion is like falling off a cliff. She has to grab the edge of Levi's desk to keep from doubling over in laughter. Armin stares at her with wide eyes, while Levi mentally shoots himself.

Once she calms down a little, she says, "Armin, go down and get yourself some tea. Sasha has some good stuff stashed and I'm sure she'd give you some," and pats him on the head. Armin scurries the heck out of there, anime style. 

"What exactly is so funny?" Levi growls, annoyed. He’s had enough of Hanji’s insanity to last a lifetime.

"I was the one who snuck into your room," Hanji declares with a smirk. "And I got away with it pretty easily."

Levi’s mouth dropped through the ground (and possibly dug a hole all the way to the other side of the world).

Should he be relieved or horrified? It means that none of those runts were the ones who were able to sneak in on him.

On the other hand, it's _Hanji_.

Levi’s frustration level has reached its peak, so he really just explodes.

Yet somehow Hanji manages to survive.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Levi Rivaille jokes! Because Chuck Norris jokes are way overdone.


	5. Now Playing in a Theater Near You

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The 104th decides to put on a play...

"So, any movie suggestions?" Armin has the laptop open on the floor in front of him, and everyone is gathered around.

"As long as it's not a horror movie, I'm good with anything," Jean says, shuddering in remembrance of the first time they watched one.

"Aw, was Jean scared?" Eren mocks.

Jean glares. "You were the one who was clinging on to Mikasa for dear life."

Eren just glares back, but doesn’t have a good comeback. But everyone silently agrees that they shouldn't watch anymore horror movies. Especially at night, a time when your Captain could be mistaken for an extremely demon from another dimension.

"Hey, last time we watched an animated movie that was pretty good," Bertholdt says. "We could watch another one of those!"

Everyone murmurs in agreement, while Connie and Sasha burst into song.

"Be a man!"

"We must be swift as a coursing river!"

"With all the force of a great typhoon!"

Reiner groans. "Not this again."

"With all the strength of a raging fire!"

"I thought they were finally done with spontaneously bursting into song," Mikasa mutters.

Sasha pauses for a moment, grinning. "Never!" she shouts, then joins Connie in belting, "Mysterious as the dark side of the mooooon!"

Annie mutters a few curses under her breath.

"Okay, guys, I picked a movie," Armin says. "It's called: The Road to El Dorado."

"Does it have singing in it?" Reiner asks. Sasha and Connie have the memories of elephants when it comes to memorizing and singing (off key) songs. 

"Uh, I don't know."

(It does) but they decide to watch it anyways.

Five minutes later, 81% of the group is rolling on the floor in laughter. Mikasa and Annie roll their eyes at the antics of Tulio and Miguel, but even Mikasa cracks a smile.

And then the horse appears.

"You know it has an uncanny appearance to Jean," Eren muses.

Silence. One very long moment for Jean.

“YES! JUST. YES.” Everyone explodes into laughter. Jean facepalms. From then on, every time the horse does something, it’s ten times funnier because no one can stop comparing the horse to Jean. Like when the horse gets drunk. Or chases after an apple. 

Later on, Sasha says, "Hey does anyone think that Tulio and Miguel are like Bertl and Reiner?"

Reiner and Bertholdt just look at her with raised eyebrows, but five seconds later…

"THEY TOTALLY DO!!" Connie exclaims.

"Bertholdt is even tall like Tulio," Jean adds, although he is still angry that they made him the horse.

"And the friends are so close they can practically read each other's mind," Armin says.

"And those mandolin playing skills." Sasha grins.

"Yeah, it's how I get all the ladies," Reiner says, smirking.

"Please. You can't even sing," Annie retorts.

"You've never heard me sing," Reiner says, crossing his arms.

"Everyone has heard you sing," Bertholdt groans. It’s true - everyone nearly went deaf after hearing Reiner screech his favorite songs in the showers (in fact it’s surprising that the glass didn’t break). 

They've almost forgotten about the movie, but then they see Jean -*cough* I mean, the horse - dive off the ship in pursuit of an apple.

The movie is much enjoyed, especially after they have established the fact that Tulio is Bertholdt, Miguel is Reiner, and Altivo is Jean.

"Ha, well then I end up with all the gold," Jean smirks. "Sucks to suck."

"Whoa, Tulio and Chel. Bertholdt, you are one lucky man,” Reiner elbows his friend and wiggles his eyebrows.

Bertholdt just shifts and sweats uncomfortably.

"Guys we should reenact this!” Sasha suddenly says. They can’t tell if she’s joking or not.

"Actually," Armin muses. "That's not such a bad idea."

So it’s decided - they’re going to put on a production of: The Adventures of Bertholdt and Reiner (and Jean). They decided to rename it partly because they thought the actual title was too lame for their purposes. They also modify the story a little so that they're running from titans instead of giant stone jaguars.

Bertholdt and Reiner are, of course, the leading roles. And everyone wants Jean to be the horse.

"Jean, you have to be Altivo," Eren says.

"I am not going to be a freaking horse,” Jean growls.

So Eren goes to Plan B. "Mikasa, convince him to be the horse!"

“Why me?”

“Because Jean would do anything for you.”

After dinner Jean walks in, unhappily saying that fine, he’ll be the horse. Eren and Armin look at Mikasa curiously, but all she does is calmly eat her dinner. 

“I am going to be the shaman,” Ymir says, on their second day of planning. “No questions asked.” She is stoked to be the creepy villain of the story. It’s like her calling in life or something. 

Connie decides that he wants to be the king. And Annie volunteers to be the soldier, because really all she has to do is beat people up and she is good at that. Everyone else will work backstage with props. 

But there is one more problem…

"So who should be Chel?" Armin asks.

"I nominate Krista," Jean says.

"Great idea," Reiner agrees. Ymir gives Bertholdt a if-you-try-kissing-her-I-will-kill-you look and he cringes and looks away awkwardly.

Krista blushes. “I don’t want to act,” she replies. “Someone else can be Chel.”

“Mikasa, you be Chel then,” Jean says. He would have suggested Mikasa first, but didn’t because Bertholdt was Tulio and he was just the freaking horse.

"No, this is stupid, I am not going to act in this," Mikasa replies, crossing her arms.

Armin is silently relieved. Mikasa really doesn't have a sense of humor, and she definitely wouldn't want to act. In fact, acting would be the one thing she would be bad at.

"Okay fine, who should be Chel then?" Jean asks.

"I want to be Chel!" Sasha says, walking through the door armed with a pile of wood. Levi was annoyed that she was gathering wood for their play, but Hanji had been so ecstatic about it Sasha almost fell over with the amount of wood that was suddenly heaped into her arms.

"No way, Potato Girl," Jean scowls.

"Don't call me that," Sasha says angrily. "I can outshoot any of you any day."

“You shouldn’t be Chel,” Annie replies.

“Why not?” Sasha challenges. 

“Because you’re too stupid.”

“Why you-”

"Okay guys, calm down!" Armin shouts. "I'll be Chel."

"Wait, you?" Reiner asks, slightly confused.

"I'll be her," Armin repeats. "Since no one can agree on anything otherwise." They consider this for a moment. Chel is an intelligent character, with just the right amount of sass. A lot like Armin, if you think about it. 

"Fine you can be Chel," Jean says. "At least I'll be in good company."

"Aw, Bertholdt and Armin sitting in a tree," Connie starts singing, obnoxiously grinning. "K-I-S-S-I-ow!"

"Shut up," Mikasa growls, hitting Connie upside the head.

Armin and Bertholdt awkwardly looked at each other. They're good friends, but that just makes it more awkward (and Connie really isn’t helping).

Finally, they can start practice. Mikasa isn’t officially in charge, but she’s the one who keeps everyone in line. Which is a good thing, because if she wasn’t there to glare at people, there would be utter chaos. Connie + Scissors = BAD NEWS.

"No, it's pronounced "L-Door-ah-doh" not like how you're pronouncing it," Armin explains exasperatedly. 

Sasha tries again. "Il-deer-ay-doh". It’s a good thing Sasha doesn’t actually have to say the name of the city during the play.

"No, L-Door-ah-doh," Armin repeats for the fifth time. 

"That's what I said!"

Meanwhile, Jean is balanced precariously on a rickety ladder, reaching up to the rafters. Levi wouldn't let them use their gear for "recreational purposes", so they had to dig some out from the basement. It’s crazy-town on the floor beneath him, and it really would be just his luck if someone ran into his ladder and knocked him down.

Eren and Armin even bet on it. That is not a good thing.

I shouldn’t have volunteered to be up here, Jean thinks, muttering a curse when the ladder rocks again.

But soon he manages to get the curtains put up and everything is put into place. 

When they’re finally ready to perform, Hanji drags Levi in to watch (there may or may not have been blackmailing involved). 

“It’s showtime,” Connie says, grinning, motioning for Mikasa to dim the lights. He’s wearing a crown made of leaves and thread, and his outfit is something Krista managed to put together. She made all the costumes, finding bits of fabric here and there. 

In the audience, Hanji is whooping and hollering. She could probably make up an entire audience just by herself. Levi sits next to her, scowling, thinking of all the paperwork he had to put off for this.

The curtains part, and soon it is clear that no one really focused on memorizing lines. At all. 

Well, Bertholdt has his lines memorized, but no one can tell because he’s all nervous and about performing, so he speaks really quietly. But by the time the first chase scene happens, Bertholdt really gets into his role as Tulio. Everyone is surprised that he’s actually a pretty good actor. 

And since they have no gold, they use bread as the gold instead (something that Reiner thought was stupid but there was nothing else they could use). Of course, the bread is handled by many hands, and the entire time Levi thinks about how much bread they just got germy and wasted. The five second rule really doesn’t apply here. 

There is one scene where Tulio and Miguel get their clothes stolen by monkeys (aka Sasha) and they have to chase after them. Everyone is looking forward to this part (come on, even Ymir has some appreciation for Reiner’s abs). 

“This is going to be hilarious,” Eren says to Armin backstage.

“Yeah totall - hey wait. That’s not Reiner’s costume,” Armin notices, confused.

“Ohmygosh,” Eren breathes, starting to laugh. “I’m pretty sure Sasha just replaced Reiner’s clothes with a dress.”

Pink and frilly, Reiner looks at it, shrugs, and puts it on anyways. Everyone freezes for a moment, but then the play has to be stopped for a couple minutes so that people can stop laughing. Levi just sits there holding his head in his hands, feeling a colossal headache coming on. 

When Armin comes in as Chel, he knocks everyone’s socks off because he’s just that great at acting. Obviously he and Bertholdt aren’t going to make out on stage, but they joke around and have a blast instead. 

Reiner actually keeps the dress on for the entirety of Act I. “We will return to Il Dirado after a brief intermission,” Sasha announces with a dramatic bow to their two-person audience, and Armin resists the urge to hit his head against the wall. 

Their ultimate favorite scene is the one where the gang gets drunk, and it’s really hilarious because Reiner and Bertholdt really get into character, but Jean just kind of stumbles around awkwardly, because he doesn’t know what he’s supposed to do.

“Jean, dance or something!” Sasha hisses from off-stage.

Jean starts to do this awkward robot-dancing. In the audience, Levi is restraining Hanji, who just will not sit still because the music is playing and she wants to join the party. 

“I can’t tell if that play was a success or not,” Armin says, when the curtain closes (Hanji is still cheering).

“Plot was a total flop,” Eren replies. “But the rest of it was brilliant.” Armin has to agree, because even if they didn’t really get the point across that the shaman-dude was actually bad, the play was full of unexpected surprises. Half the time was probably spent with them rolling on the floor backstage. 

“Hanji liked it,” Connie adds. 

“Oh, I’m so glad,” Jean deadpans. 

Levi’s only comment about the play is that they had better clean up, before stalking away for another dose of caffeine in preparation for a long night of paperwork.

“Don’t worry,” Hanji says, winking. “He liked it, even if he didn’t show it. You know how he is.”

They all stay up late laughing about the play, eating cheese and potatoes. But then they really regret it when Levi kicks them out of bed at five in the morning the next day for training.

If only they had become thespians.


	6. Titan PETs

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Erwin has to observe the new trainees on inspection day, and he learns some interesting things...

It's inspection day so Erwin takes his Personal Electronic Tablet (provided by Titan Mobile of course) and heads off to the Survey Corps HQ.

Hanji is the one who opens the door, bright and chipper as usual. "Commander! Good morning!" she says. Behind her, Moblit flips through pages on a clipboard, most likely committing things to memory that Hanji will forget.

"Good morning, Hanji," Erwin replies, walking through the door. 

"Ooh!" Hanji exclaims. "You have a Titan PET!"

Erwin can't help grimacing. It really is a strange name for such a device, combined with the name of the company.

"Yes I do," he says.

"They're so handy aren't they?" Hanji leads Erwin through the hallway. "I use mine for practically everything." She looks at Moblit, who has been following close behind. "I don't know why you still carry that thing around. It uses so much paper, and so inefficient.”

She grabs the clipboard from her assistant and throws it behind her shoulder, as poor Moblit runs after it was a faint: "But Squad Leader!"

Hanji takes Erwin to a large room with a sofa at one end and a large blackboard behind it.

"Levi is beating the kids into shape for you. It seems they didn't clean up to his expectations, so it might take a little bit for them to show up," Hanji explains.

"I don't mind waiting," Erwin replies, sitting down on the sofa.

"I'll let them know you're here. Oh and by the way, it's really fun to look up your name and see what comes up." And with that, she's gone.

Curious, Erwin opens up his tablet and types in: Erwin Smith.

The first thing that comes up is: Commander Erwin Smith (aka Commander Handsome, according to members of the 104th Trainees Squad).

Erwin can't help it - he laughs out loud.

"I didn't know they thought that about me," he says to himself. "Interesting."

Moblit knocks on the door and brings in a glass of water, and then not long afterwards, the recruits file in. Levi is right behind them. 

"Commander Erwin, sir!" They all salute.

"At ease," Erwin says. "So, Levi, how is their training going?"

"They still haven't learned respect, that's for sure," Levi growls, plopping down on the couch.

"It doesn't seem like that at all," Erwin says, getting up and walking down the line, examining the trainees closely.

"So, I hear that some of you like to call me Commander Handsome," Erwin says.

Somewhere down the line, someone squeaks. Erwin sees that it's a girl with brown hair pulled into a ponytail.

"Braus, what did I say?" Levi snarls, zeroing in on the noise. Clearly, he is in an extremely good mood. Erwin considers patting him on the head just to see what would happen but refrains.

"Sasha Braus?" Erwin questions. The girl looks up. "Step forward."

She swallows, but steps forward and raises her arms in a salute. "Yes, sir!"

"Is it true that you and your comrades refer to me as 'Commander Handsome'?" Erwin asks, raising one (stupendous) eyebrow.

Sasha didn't know what to say. If she told the truth it would be completely embarrassing, but if she didn't she might offend the commander. On the other hand, she might face the wrath of her companions if she told the truth...

"No sir," she says, voice quavering a little. 

Erwin doesn't know what to think about that, but it's amusing anyway. And it's not like he doesn't like the nickname.

After asking a few more general questions he dismisses them. He'll be around for the rest of the day, observing their training and how they function as a whole.

He uses his PET to video their training. Levi is a slave driver but it's clear that they all have improved. Especially Mikasa Ackerman. It's funny how she and Levi are so similar yet despise each other.

Although it is hilarious that she makes fun of his height. Everyone does it, but Mikasa comes up with... interesting nicknames. Evil Midget. Devil Dwarf. And Erwin's personal favorite: Pygmy Titan.

He learns all this through the online database, because he decides that he'd like to know more about the future soldiers of humanity, particularly the ones of interest.

He reads one that causes him to, once again, raise one (fabulous) eyebrow. "Is Armin Arlert Commander Erwin's son? Or is Commander Erwin really Armin from...THE FUTURE???"

It's lunchtime when Erwin reads this, seated at one of the tables at the left of the dining hall. He doesn’t know if he should feel honored. After all, Armin is one of the most brilliant strategists he’s seen.

Everyone is nervous that he is watching them even as they eat. At first, they think that since he has his PET with him, he won’t really pay that much attention to them. And mostly, Erwin is just typing up reports and looking things up.

Suddenly, his finger slips and accidentally clicks on a link. Too late, he realizes that it is a video, and he doesn’t have his volume turned down.

“LET’S MAKE THE MOST OF THE NIGHT LIKE WE’RE GONNA DIE YOUNG!”

Everyone stares. Erwin clears his throat, pauses the video, and makes his escape (what he was looking at that made that link show up…?).

The recruits look at each other in confusion and then shrug. That’s not the weirdest thing that’s happened to them. Then they start to get really confused when Erwin starts staring, at a couple of people in particular, during his rounds of inspection.

He spends a very long time trying to decide whether or not Jean Kirschtein really does have a horse face. 

"Do you know why Commander Erwin keeps looking at me?" Jean mutters, focusing his attention of saddling his horse.

"Beats me," Reiner shrugs.

"Maybe you're in trouble." Connie grins. "You didn't do so well in training this morning. He’s probably just waiting to see you fall off your horse."

"Shove off!" Jean wants to actually shove Connie off the bench but figures that wouldn't leave a very good impression.

Eren gets up to grab some more bread, and notices that Erwin is looking at him extremely strangely.

Because you see... Erwin has discovered Ereri. Poor, poor, poor, Erwin.

If it weren't so disturbing, it would be absolutely hilarious.

"So, Levi, what do you think of the Jaeger boy?" Erwin asks at the end of the day.

"The brat could be taken down a notch or two," Levi grumbles. 

"So what is this ‘Ereri’ situation I learned about?"

Levi almost falls out of his chair at the mention of the E-word. "How do you know about that?"

"I read about it on my PET," Erwin explains.

In his mind, Levi shatters Erwin's tablet into dust. The aura he emits could probably kill a million titans.

It is quite intimidating but all Erwin can think about are all the Levi and cleaning jokes. Levi would make a fine princess; spending the day cleaning and talking with animals (because he hates people). And yanking Levi out of his comfort zone is quite amusing.

Erwin makes a mental note to thank Hanji for telling him to look people up. Titan PETs are more useful than he thought.

But then Hanji takes his gratitude as a reason to tell him even more.

“So basically, with this game, you control this little person who swings between the pillars on 3DMG. You’re trying not to hit the pillars on top and bottom,” Hanji says, demonstrating.

“That’s dumb,” Levi drawls from his seat on the couch.

“Why don’t you try it and see?” Hanji shoves the tablet into Levi’s face. Annoyed, Levi gives it a try. The game is simple in design, easy to understand, and extremely addicting.

It takes Erwin too many tries to pry the tablet away.

He also never stops bugging Levi about the “Ereri” thing, mostly because it annoys the heck out of him.


	7. Levi Heichou is Watching

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Levi has to go away for a month...

"Levi Heichou is leaving?!?"

"For a month?!?"

"And Hanji’s leaving too?!?"

"Is this a dream? Somebody pinch me - ow!!"

Armin winces at the excessive amount of question marks and exclamation points. He doesn’t know why Levi is leaving them without supervision. For a month. 

Bad idea. Very, very bad idea. 

“Who’s up for a party?” Ymir says, smirking.

“Heck yeah,” Reiner exclaims, leaning back in his chair. 

“I bet Hanji has some alcohol hidden somewhere in her room,” Connie says. “I bet we could get some!”

“Wouldn’t she lock her door though?” Bertholdt asks. He keeps his voice low, since the hallways echo. They’re sitting in the dining room, as per usual, discussing this interesting turn of events. 

Jean snorts. “Please, this is Hanji we’re talking about. She’s totally going to forget to lock her door.”

“That's what Moblit is for,” Annie says.

“Then we’ll distract Moblit,” Sasha suggests. “He’s got a hundred things to remember before they leave, I’m sure that locking Hanji’s door is low on his list of priorities.”

“Let’s do it,” Eren grins. 

“This is a really bad idea,” Mikasa mutters. Armin just sighs. There’s no reasoning with any of them. 

A couple days later, their superior officers are ready to leave. “Kiddies!” Hanji exclaims. “Ooh, I’m going to miss you!”

They kind of stand there awkwardly or inch away when Hanji attempts to hug them. Connie slips off to distract Moblit. 

“I expect this place to look exactly like it was,” Levi growls. “Not a speck of dust out of place.”

“Yes, Heichou,” they chorus. 

As soon as Hanji is finished saying her goodbyes (they made sure to set aside time for this because otherwise Hanji would make them late) they leave. The door clicks behind them.

Connie saunters up, grinning. They all look at him, eyebrows raised, and Connie holds up a set of keys.

"Now we can get into Heichou's room too," he says.

“Well, what are we waiting for?” Reiner grins. They would have gone to Hanji’s room first, but this is ten times more exciting. They all rush up the stairs to Levi’s room and wait eagerly for Connie to open the door. 

“Open it up, Connie,” Jean says. 

“Here goes,” Connie says, as everyone crowds around eagerly. They’ve already placed bets on what they’re going to find.

"One second," Connie says, because his phone just sounded. Everyone groans - they've been waiting for this for the last 24 hours.

Connie suddenly pales, drops the keys and runs away.

They all stare at the trail of dust left in his wake.

Eren picks up the keys. "Guess he's going to miss out." 

Then everyone else gets a text reading: Nice try, but unless you want my foot in your face, I wouldn't recommend it.

Everyone is silent for a moment, and then Reiner releases a long breath. "Reasons why Heichou is practically psychic," he says. Not to mention creepy...

So they never get to find the pink frilly apron Hanji gave Levi for his last birthday. Which he would have burned, but one day everything else was dirty and he had to wear it until he did the laundry. So he keeps it, but he puts it deep, deep, deep, in his closet.

They go to Hanji’s room next, because if the couldn’t find out Levi’s secrets, maybe they could at least get something that’s just as good. Unfortunately...there isn't any alcohol anywhere. They even make Sasha look through Hanji’s office (it’s a scarring experience) but find nothing. Levi probably banned all forms of liquid except tea and coffee (aka Levi’s life source).

Before he left, Levi left them orders to do some training everyday, but no one actually does that. Except Mikasa, because she always trains, unless she is physically incapable.

Sasha skips into the kitchen one morning for breakfast. She slept in, because they always have to wake up for early morning training sessions and she hates it. And since Levi isn’t around to kick her out of bed, she’s got free reign!

Just as she opens the pantry door, she gets a message.

It's a picture of Levi with his "killing titans" face, along with a message: BRAUS YOU FATTY GET BACK TO WORK!!

Sasha shrieks and drops her phone (it doesn't break, Titan Mobile phones are virtually indestructible).

She looks around in terror. Did she accidentally summon Levi’s angry spirit or something? How did he know that at this exact moment, she’d be slacking off and getting food? 

For the rest of the month, Levi somehow knows exactly what they’re doing and where they are, and sends them threats via text message, always coupled with his face. And for once, Armin has no idea how he does it.

When they’re in the stables one day, Levi sends them a text that says: You’d better muck the stables. And if Kirschstein makes it dirty again, he’ll have to clean it himself.

This is kind of counterproductive, because that just makes Jean clench his jaw and bury his face in his hands as the others laugh and throw straw around, so nothing gets done. 

Mikasa would have loved to slack off all month, just to spite Levi, but he makes sure that doesn’t happen.

Your turn to clean the kitchen, Ackerman. Just make sure you don't poison anyone, the message reads.

Mikasa glares at her phone and mockingly says, "Yes, Heichou."

Her phone instantly pings again. I heard that.

What. The. Heck.

"Doesn't he have anything better to do?" she mutters. "They went to Sina on important military business. I knew that midget would think himself too high and mighty to pay attention."

 

And just when they think it couldn't get any worse, Levi takes it a step further.

All of their phones ring at full volume at 4:30 in the morning. And it's not music or anything, it's a recording of Levi telling to get up and make 11 rounds through the training course before breakfast or else he will feed them to Hanji.

It's a really effective alarm. And Levi does it everyday. It drives them crazy but they're not about to risk The Wrath of Levi.

A week before Levi gets back, they run out of bed in a crazed panic when they realize that they woke up at noon. 

“There wasn’t a message from Heichou today!” Krista says. 

They tiptoe around the rest of the day, afraid even though Levi didn’t give them their daily wake-up call, he’ll double the yelling today.

But the next day is silent. And the next. And the one after that. 

“Maybe he finally got too busy to watch after us,” Bertholdt suggests. They’re holding an emergency What-Is-Going-On meeting. These kind of meetings happen a lot.

“It’s possible,” Armin agrees. 

“Well if Heichou isn’t watching us, I say we savor the moment and finally have our party,” Reiner says. 

And so they party until midnight. And Levi’s favorite teacup may or may not have been broken. But they cleaned it up and he has five more of the same exact cup so it was safe. 

Or so they thought.

They’re all lined up bright and early the morning their superior officers get back, yawning but awake. Levi surveys the place, and then stops.

“So how was your party?” he growls. 

Everyone freezes. 

“Um,” Eren stutters. “What party?”

So they get extra training every day and it’s double duty on chores for everyone. Plus they have to buy him a new teacup. It’s almost like Levi purposely left them alone so that he could punish them for misbehaving. 

So Levi gets the last laugh. Well, it’s more like the last smirk. And the last death threat. Because Levi doesn’t laugh. 

But technically he doesn’t actually get the last laugh, because Hanji steals his phone one day during a meeting and takes a thousand selfies. He doesn’t notice until a couple weeks later, when he has to painstakingly delete them one by one.


	8. Ackerman Rules for Life

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Spoiler Alert! If you haven't read Chapter 56 of the manga, or if Tumblr (oh Tumblr, how I love thee -_-) you might not want to read this. This idea was just too good to pass up.

"She can't know," he says, leaning back in his chair.

"Why not?" The other man asks. "You're one of the only family she has left."

"It's not important."

"It will be important to her."

"But not in a good way."

"Don't be ridiculous, just -"

"No," the first man growls. "You're the first person to know in the last fifteen years. It's not important."

His companion holds up his hands. "Fine, suit yourself. But she's going to find out eventually. And what will she say when she finds out why you hid it from her."

"Whatever."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"MIKASA MIKASA MIKASA!" Hanji bursts through the door, waving her tablet in the air and almost hitting it against the door frame.

"What?" Mikasa grumbles, looking up from her dinner.

Hanji is silent for a moment and then she starts freaking out even more.

"It all makes sense now! You guys have the same temperaments and the same skill sets so no wonder!"

"You're not making any sense, Hanji," Armin says as Mikasa rolls her eyes and turns back to her food.

Hanji just starts shouting more nonsense and it's even worse than when Eren goes off about killing titans.

"Hanji, calm down!" Armin tries to reason with her. "What is going on?"

After five head-splitting minutes, Hanji finally stops.

"So you can't repeat this to anyone," she whispers. Eren rolls his eyes - the entire room heard her rants, and she was telling them to keep the secret? Then again it was probably something ridiculous, like when Hanji tore the entire place down looking for "extremely important" documents. Turns out they were just pictures of Sawney and Bean that had slipped under some bloody tools.

"But Mikasa," Hanji continues in all seriousness. "Did you know Levi is related to you?"

"What?" All three of them stared at her incredulously.

"Look at this." Hanji pulls up a website on her tablet. "You know how Levi has never told anyone his last name? Well I found some official documentation that says his name is Levi Ackerman."

A speechless, jaw-dropping silence filled the air.

The official documentation (aka Wikipedia) surely enough has an article devoted to the one and only Levi Ackerman.

"That isn't possible," Mikasa mutters in horror. But she can't deny official documentation.

"Yeah, Heichou is too short," Eren jokes.

"Well you both are extremely talented," Armin muses. "It's possible he could be a cousin… or uncle…"

"That is just so weird," Eren says, and everyone nods.

"Don't tell anyone about this," Mikasa tells them. "I want to know why he kept this secret from me…"

Thirty minutes later, everyone knows, because Eren has a big mouth and the secret just kind of slipped out. As a result, both the Ackermans want to pummel him, which further convinces people that what Eren said was true. Levi and Mikasa are so similar it's scary...

"It just blows my mind," Sasha says in a quiet whisper so Mikasa won't overhear.

"Everything blows your mind, Sasha." Jean smirks.

"Shut up Kirstein!"

"It's just so strange," Krista says.

Ymir nods her head in agreement. "I'll say."

No one notices when Mikasa slips out of the room.

She walks into Levi's office, because she knows he will be eating or getting tea in the kitchen. Perfect opportunity for some investigation.

Tiptoeing around, she tries the neat stacks of paper on his desk first. All she finds are mission documents. Boring. She's carefully looking through the second file of papers when a voice growls, "Well isn't this just a nice little family reunion? All we need is Jaeger and we'll be one happy family."

Mikasa spins around and coolly looks Levi in the eye.

"What are you doing here, Ackerman?" Levi walks up and snatches the file away from her hands, glaring.

Ackerman Rule #1: The death glare must be perfected.

"Why have you been keeping secrets, Ackerman?" Mikasa asks mockingly.

"You don't need to know that," Levi snarls.

Cue the staring contest.

Ackerman Rule #20: Staring contests are the ultimate test of strength.

"Fine," Mikasa concedes, and Levi smirks. Mikasa may be related to him, but he is still her captain.

Ackerman Rule #57: Never go down without a fight.

Then his shirts start disappearing. Particularly after laundry days, his laundry pile comes back with one less shirt than before. But no matter how much punishment he doles out, nobody confesses to stealing them - why would they want them anyways.

One day instead of a pile of laundry on his bed, he only finds one pink cravat. The message is clear. If he wants is clothes back… he's going to have to face Mikasa.

Mikasa may have lost the last battle, but the war isn't over yet.

But there is an important meeting today and he is not going to wear a pink cravat again because last time that happened it totally diminished his authority.

Mikasa hasn't won yet. Levi finds some of his casual street-wear. It's just a meeting with some of his subordinates, and if anyone has anything to say about it, well they aren't going to be talking about it for very long.

Ackerman Rule #41: Always prove everyone wrong.

Coming out of the door, he runs into Mikasa. She looks at what he is wearing and raises an eyebrow.

"You look like a moody teenager," she comments, smirk tugging at her lips.

"Can it, Ackerman," Levi growls.

"Why should I, Ackerman?"

Ackerman Rule #2: Show your hatred through your eyes, not your words.

"I am your captain."

"And you could also be my grandfather."

"Actually I'm your second cousin six times removed on your father's side."

"Wait, what?"

"But since I am so distant I decided it wasn't important to tell you."

"You're lying. That's a ridiculous reason."

Levi sighs. He really has to get to this meeting. "Fine," he mutters, reaching into his pocket to bring out an old beaten up book. "Read this and you'll find out why." He tosses the book to her and walks off.

Curious, Mikasa opens it and reveals the Ultimate Secrets of Life.

Well, not really, but close enough.

Ackerman Rules for Life - All rules must be fulfilled or an Ackerman you shall never be.

"Interesting," Mikasa murmurs. She brings it along with her, reading it throughout the day.

At first she thinks the entire thing is just a joke. And yet… she fulfills every single requirement. Clearly she is a certified Ackerman. And so is Levi.

Well… almost.

Ackerman Rule #100: You must be at least 163 cm tall.

Mikasa actually laughs at this, calling the attention of the other girls as they are all getting ready for bed.

She rushes to Levi's office immediately. "So what, you were disowned?" she asks, waving the book in the air.

Levi groans. She is never going to let him live this down. "I was only two centimeters too short," he snarls.

Mikasa can't help but grin. It's just too funny.

"Shut up Acker-Mikasa." Levi decides not to start another Ackerman-name calling contest. Mikasa tries to relax her facial muscles but the corner of her mouth keeps moving up.

"Because I was disowned I was never invited to the Ackerman family meetings. There are quite a lot. You were never invited because your parents died."

"There are _Ackerman family meetings?_ "

"Yes, there are a lot of Ackermans. They stay hidden."

Mikasa is silent in contemplation for a moment, and then she says, "So why don't you drink your coffee with milk?"

Levi blinks. "What does that have to do with anything?"

"Armin told me that milk makes you taller."

"Milk ruins the coffee."

"But it's for the sake of the Ackerman family," Mikasa says, with a perfectly straight face.

"Go to sleep," Levi mutters, pointedly turning back to his paperwork.

Mikasa rolls her eyes but an order is an order. She still makes it a point to stick little notes everywhere with pictures of cows and milk.

The Ackerman family is a strange bunch.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that dear readers, is why Levi suddenly became an angsty teenager in the last chapter.


	9. Caramelldansen??

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The 104th stumbles upon crack vids...

It's movie night! They're gathered in one of the dormitories, and for the first time in a long while, there is a heated debate over what they should watch. Neither Annie nor Mikasa wants to watch another Disney movie, because Connie and Sasha don't need any more songs to ruin. Reiner and Jean don't want to watch anymore cheesy movies with bad plotlines but they refuse Ymir's horror movie request. Last time was spent watching between trembling fingertips and under blankets.

"Reiner, I didn't know you were such a wuss," Ymir says, smirking.

"Shut up, Ymir," Reiner growls, refusing to let her challenge his masculinity.

"Just because you're a freak of nature doesn't mean we're all like you," Jean adds. Ymir loves her horror movies - the scarier, the better.

Ymir narrows her eyes. "Freak of nature?" Reiner elbows Jean in the ribs. Was he trying to get them killed? Beside them, Bertholdt sweats nervously, unsure whether or not a fight is about to break out.

Meanwhile, Armin is checking his tumblr dash for anything interesting. It's better to just leave his friends alone; they need to get it out of their system.

"Armin I didn't know you posted the video of Levi dancing! He's going to kill you." Eren's notice brings everyone to attention, stopping the bickering, at least for a minute.

"You posted it?" Sasha squeals, grabbing the laptop and pressing play.

It's not the video of Levi dancing.

Everyone raises an eyebrow. "What kind of music did you put to this?" Jean asks.

"I didn't post this," Armin says.

"Good, because what the hell?" On screen is Eren's infamous trial, backed up by the obnoxious, but unnervingly catchy music.

"You give really inspirational speeches, but this kind of ruins it," Krista says.

"It's so… upbeat," Annie agrees, curling her lip with distaste.

Armin clears his throat. "It's um… the song is called 'Caramelldansen'." This was a song he did not discover by choice.

And then Levi's foot connects with Eren's face. In the video, that is. Eren winces in remembrance of it all.

"You know, Heichou knows some pretty fancy kicks," Connie muses. "It looks like he's sassing everyone. I never noticed before."

Reiner snickers, which earns a glare from Mikasa.

They don't wonder about the strange music for long. Soon, each of Levi's kicks, along with Eren's choking and exclamations from the spectators, matches a beat in the music.

Krista's jaw drops while Ymir and Jean grin with elation. Even Annie smirks, whereas the others aren't sure how they should react. Mikasa slams a hand on the space bar so hard it almost breaks.

"Awww, Mikasa, why'd you stop it?" Sasha whines.

"Who would make such a terrible thing?" The look on Mikasa's face is equal to that of Levi's when Eren accidentally dropped cooking oil on the kitchen floor.

"You have to admit, it's pretty funny," Eren says, rubbing his neck. "Painful. But funny."

Mikasa just grasps her scarf tighter and sits down next to Eren, glowering.

They pick another video that looks more promising. Within seconds everyone is laughing again, mostly at Eren's expense.

"Whoever...came up with...the brilliant idea to give...Jaeger such a...tinny voice is a...genius," Jean manages to say between gasps.

Eren is about to make Jean eat his words but then the next scene is Jean's face photoshopped onto a horse. It completely makes up for anything Eren could have said in retaliation. Jean has just about had enough of horse-face jokes, and soon he joins Mikasa in the Bury-Your-Face-In-Cloth club.

"Okay, what the heck is 'Pretty Girl Swag'?" Bertholdt asks. Krista is now wearing badly photoshopped gold chains and giant sunglasses bearing the word 'SWAG'.

Ymir nudges Krista. "Those glasses are a good look on you." Krista is just as confused as everybody is, but apparently 'Pretty Girl Swag' applies to her and it's a good thing…?

The majority of the video doesn't make any sense to them but they laugh anyway because it either has to do with Eren, and anything that makes fun of Eren is funny, or it uses either photoshop or voice-overs to turn something serious into a parody.

"I should learn how to use photoshop," Connie snickers. "I would spend my life making videos like these."

"Please don't," Bertholdt says, shuddering at the thought of what Connie would do.

One particular voice-over catches their attention, in yet another "cat fight", as Ymir calls it, between Eren and Jean.

"Kirschstein, there is no way you have a girlfriend, liar."

Jean glares at Reiner. "I didn't actually say that, idiot!"

"Yeah but it's true that you don't have a girlfriend because," Armin drops his voice to a mock whisper. "Mikasa doesn't date horses."

Even Armin has an evil side...a very evil side. The world should be terrified...

Mikasa actually laughs. And not just a snicker, she actually spit her water across the room, right smack dab in Bertholdt's face.

Luckily it was Bertholdt who got hit and not Annie, only because she's a lot shorter. She calmly hands him a napkin.

"What I want to know is how whoever made this video got all that footage," Eren says, forehead wrinkling like a raisin. "And it's pretty good cinematography too… like they've got sunlight shining down on Krista and everything."

"Don't think too hard, I don't think you have enough brain cells for it," Jean mutters from his corner.

Eren's angry growl is exactly the same as the one currently playing in the video.

"Is Levi Gay or European?" Sasha suddenly says, saving them from yet another fight.

Everyone's heads turn to look at her, bewilderment etched on their faces. "What?"

"There's a video. About whether or not Levi is gay."

Connie grabs the laptop, grinning with immense excitement. "Oh man, I've gotta see this!"

_"There, right there_

_Look at that tan, well tinted skin_

_Look at the killer shape he's in_

_Look at that slightly stubbly chin_

_Oh please, he's gay, totally gay"_

"Uh..w-what..." Speechless with shock, they can only look at each other in utter confusion.

_"Is he gay?_

_Of course, he's gay!_

_Or European?"_

Connie and Sasha have defined "rolling on the floor with laughter". Mikasa chokes on her water again but manages not to spit it out this time and Eren has to pound her on the back to keep her from dying.

_"Gay or European?_

_So many shades of gray_

_Depending on the time of day, the French go either way"_

"Well Heichou is french...right?" Krista squeaks.

Mikasa stands up and walks out of the door, a highly disturbed look on her face.

_"So if I may, I'm proud to say_

_He's gay and European_

_He's gay and European_

_He's gay and European and gay_

_Fine okay, I'm gay_

_Hooray!"_

"I think I've been scarred for life," Reiner muttered.

"Why…"

"Just… no."

The door suddenly slams open and Levi walks in. Sasha quickly closes the lid of the laptop and Armin winces again. How much abuse will the laptop take today?

"Oi, brats, some of us actually need to get work done," Levi growls.

"Sorry, Heichou," they mutter, avoiding each other's eyes because if they did they would all burst out laughing again.

Levi scans the room suspiciously. "If I hear another peep out of you, you can be sure that there will be hell to pay tomorrow."

"Yes, Heichou," the reply, breathing a sigh of relief as soon as the door closes.

"So do you think he's gay?" Sasha whispers.

"NO!"

"Yes!" Eren shouts half a second too late. They all stare at him. Eren's face turns red upon realizing his mistake. "I mean... no. Obviously Heichou isn't gay."

Suddenly, Levi runs into the room with the faint sound of music playing on his pocket (I came in like a wrecking ball!) and grabs the laptop to promptly throws it out the window. Because apparently he is psychic… or something…

Titan killing should be a sport. Levi would win, because the #1 Most Recommended Way to Effectively Kill Titans is to throw laptops at them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I don't own the referenced crack videos, I just came up with the reactions, so check them out! I can't link stuff on fanfiction but I'll just give you the titles and you can search them up on youtube.
> 
> Shingeki no Stupidity #5 (Crack) - heavenxsoul
> 
> Attack on Titan - Corporal Levi SM Eren with Infinite Combo Cycle - Episode 14 [HD] - Onesing Gita
> 
> Is Levi Gay or European - lightbulb900watts


	10. The Immortal Laptop

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hanji takes the laptop for examination... and the others have to save it.

"Hey, Armin!" Hanji exclaims, walking into his room. "What'cha up to?"

Armin nearly jumps ten feet into the air. "Hanji! Can't you knock?" He shouldn't have asked - everyone knows that if they don't want Hanji to burst in unannounced, they have to lock their doors. Unfortunately… none of the dormitories have locks on the door. Levi doesn't trust them enough (can't imagine why…) to let them lock their doors at night.

"Well you weren't changing so no harm done," Hanji says, patting his head. "Oooh, what are you looking at?"

"Uh, nothing," Armin replies, clearing his throat awkwardly. He quickly closes the lid of the laptop. "Did you need something?"

"Hm, this is similar to my Titan PET!" Hanji picks up the laptop for examination. "It's surprisingly light."

"It's a laptop," Armin explains.

"Can I examine it?" Only Hanji would ask if she can "examine" everything instead of asking if she can look at it.

"Sure..." Armin says, unsure whether or not he really should let her look at the laptop.

And then Hanji walks away humming "She Blinded Me With Science" under her breath. Armin never does get to find out why Hanji came into his room in the first place.

-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-

"Hanji took the laptop," Armin groans, face in his hands and food forgotten. Mikasa tried to force feed him bread, but she gave up because Armin looked so miserable.

Eren pats his shoulder. "I'm sure she'll give it back in one piece." He doesn't even believe himself.

"Ugh. No she won't."

"Hey, Armin, you okay?" Connie plops down on the bench next to Armin.

Armin looks up. "No, not really."

"That's rough, buddy," Connie replies, not quite sure what to say. Armin is usually the positive one. "Anyways, I was wondering if I could use the laptop."

Armin sighs. "You can't. Hanji has it."

"HANJI HAS THE LAPTOP?"

"Great, now everyone knows," Mikasa mutters. "Thanks, Connie."

"She just took it," Armin explains. "I couldn't stop her."

Upon hearing the news, Reiner pales, Krista's jaw drops in shock, and Jean faints, among other similar reactions.

"Somebody get the smelling salts. Or Connie's dirty socks, something that has a really strong smell," Sasha grunts, barely keeping Jean from falling flat on his face. "Ugh, someone's been eating too many oats."

"So what are we going to do?" Annie asks.

"You know how Hanji is," Bertholdt replies. "Until her test subjects are fully examined or dead…" Everyone gulps. "She's not going to let go of it."

"She probably already named it," Ymir adds wryly.

"Then I guess we'll just have to commence with a rescue mission," Armin says. They all nod solemnly.

-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-

Levi kicks open the door to Hanji's laboratory. This isn't a place he likes being in, because his fingers start twitching with the overwhelming urge to clean, but he couldn't find Moblit and there was something urgent he needed to discuss with her.

"Hanji, you were supposed to be in my office an hour ago," he snarls.

Her back is to him, illuminated by the faint glow of...something. He grimaces. If she brought in another radioactive element…

Hanji turns to look at him, a familiar gleam in her eyes. Uh-oh. No wonder he couldn't find Moblit.

"LEVIIIIIII!" Hanji starts shouting gibberish about titans and theories and the only thing keeping Levi from hitting his head on the wall are the disgusting blood stains. Where did they even come from? Titan blood evaporates.

"I don't care, Hanji," he growls, grabbing hold of her hair to stop her pacing. "Erwin sent us an important message regarding his conversation with - WHAT IS THAT?"

"IFOUNDSOMANYTHEORIESREGARDINGTHETITANSANDITALLMAKESSOMUCHSENSEAND - MMPH."

Levi takes drastic measures and slaps a hand on Hanji's mouth, if it would only stop her talking.

"Did you get this from those brats?" he asks. Hanji nods. This is his chance to finally be rid of that stupid object…

"I'm taking it." Hanji's eyes widen and suddenly Levi feels her teeth clamp down on his fingers. "What the hell?"

"Noooooo! You have to let me examine it!" Hanji shrieks. She grabs the laptop and hugs it. "It's my baby."

"I thought the titans were your babies," Levi mutters, lunging for the laptop. "I am going to burn this."

Hanji dances out of reach. "What did this ever do to you?"

"Lots of things," Levi growls. His fingers grace the surface of the laptop, but then Hanji holds the laptop above her head so that he can't reach it.

This is why Levi hates being short.

"C'mon Levi, just let me keep it!"

"No."

"But SCIENCE -"

"I. Said. No." Levi's glare is so malicious it might even be able to make Dot Pixis give up alcohol forever.

Hanji grins. "Okay, thanks!"

Levi's roar of frustration resonates throughout the entire castle. In one great leap he grabs the laptop and runs out the door. Hanji gives chase, with Moblit on her heels. He just happened to walk by and see them and has no idea what is going on but figures it's not good.

A couple flashes of beige and white and black speed by the dining hall, where the cadets are brainstorming ideas for Operation Rescue the Laptop from Hanji.

"What was that?" Eren asks.

They poke their heads out the door to see what's going on, only seeing the swish of Moblit's cloak as they turn the corner. Everyone shrugs. Who knows what crazy things Hanji's up to now? It only makes them work faster to think of a plan.

Levi runs all the way up to the top of the castle and uses his magic powers to set the laptop on fire. Just kidding. He uses a match. He figures that if throwing the laptop doesn't work, then he'll set it on fire and then throw it.

"No!" Hanji shrieks and Levi drops the laptop with a satisfied smirk on his face. That laptop can go to Laptop Hell for all he cares.

There is a great blast and all the titans in the general vicinity are instantly vaporized.

"How did it do that?" Hanji asks between gasps. She thinks she might faint (LAPTOPS CAN KILL TITANS?) and Moblit quickly dumps a bucket of water to bring her back to her senses. He keeps these sort of things handy.

Levi just wipes his hands with a handkerchief and walks away.

-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-

Late that night, Hanji slips outside to the charred grassy area at the side of the castle. Bending down to examine a fallen petal, a sudden gleam catches her eye.

It's the laptop. Miraculously unharmed. Cackling slightly, she picks up the silver object and heads back towards the castle.

Carefully closing the front door behind her so that it doesn't make a noise (Levi is a light sleeper), Hanji scurries back to her lab.

"This laptop can kill titans! But nothing happens to the laptop itself!" she whispers to herself. "I must examine it - this could be the revelation of the century!"

She places the laptop on the table, pushing away bloody pliers and broken glass to make room. She only needs one candle - the laptop provides enough light.

"I wonder what I would find if I dismantled it…"

She sorts through the tools she has around the room. After a lot of shuffling and clanking, she finally finds the screwdriver.

"Now let's see what secrets the Immortal Laptop holds." Hanji rubs her hands with anticipation.

Before she can touch a nail, something hits her over the head and she passes out.

"Help me get her to the bed," Armin mutters, holding a frying pan in his hands.

"Ugh, she's as heavy as Jean is!" Sasha complains, grabbing Hanji's ankles.

"Ah! Watch her head!"

"That's okay, I don't think she has any brain cells to lose," Reiner says, smirking.

They manage to get Hanji to her bed (she has a room but sometimes she just crashes in her lab) without any more trouble.

"Okay, grab the laptop, and let's get out of here," Armin whispers. They have a low chance of getting caught, but he isn't about to push his luck.

They get to the top of the stairs, but suddenly Levi emerges from the shadows and growls, "What are you runts doing?"

"Levi Heichou!" They come to a screeching halt, staring at their captain's pale face with fear.

Armin gives a quick salute, using it as a way to keep the laptop hidden behind his back.

"Sasha went out for a little snack run," Reiner says. "Armin and I came to stop her."

"Hey, don't throw me under the bus!"

Luckily for them… Levi is in one of his rare good moods, since he thinks he finally got rid of the laptop forever. Or so he thinks...

"If I catch you out of bed again, you'll get nothing but bread and cheese for a month." They all gulp, and Sasha resists the urge to start crying. Everyone knows the cheese is moldy and disgusting.

"Yes, Heichou!" They all salute and quickly scurry off.

Levi rubs his forehead wearily. "I need tea."

Along the way he is ambushed by a wild Hanji muttering, "They stole it from me. My baby!"

He really doesn't have time for this. He takes his cell phone from his pocket and knocks her on the head, leaving her unconscious. Laptops can kill titans, but cell phones can be useful too.

Plus the trainees get a scary surprise the next morning, seeing Hanji sprawled out on the floor at the foot of the stairs. Definitely gets them alive and kicking.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Introducing... Bat-Levi. Who emerges from the shadows...muahahahaha.


	11. And the Winner Is...

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Pixis comes to assess the progress of the Survey Corps.

"Commander Pixis will be coming in to inspect us," Levi growls one morning during practice. He goes down the line and glares at every cadet. "So if one of you brats keeps the Survey Corps from getting the funding we need, you'll be the first to be fed to the titans."

"Yes, Sir!" the shout, saluting. This is one visit they will take seriously, because they aren't about to bet their lives on the fact that Pixis will be impressed with how their training is progressing.

Then again… Dot Pixis isn't the sanest person they know…

Still, they have improved a lot. Cleaning gives them patience, endurance, and an eye for detail, running away from Levi gives them speed, and lightning-fast reflexes comes from continuously hiding the Laptop.

"Why is Pixis in charge of assessing us anyway?" Eren wonders during lunch later that day.

Armin shrugs. "The Garrison and the Survey Corps have to work together in the event of a titan attack. It makes sense for him to inspect our training."

"I'd take Pixis over Nile Dawk any day," Connie adds, who's sitting next to Armin and surfing tumblr. "The old baldy's a pretty cool dude."

"Tch, the Military Police would use any excuse to take money away from us," Mikasa mutters, stabbing at the stringy vegetables on her plate. Eren nods in agreement.

"A visit from Pixis really just means that Heichou is going to be grouchy." Eren sighs.

"What else is new?" Mikasa rolls her eyes.

"Nah, I think it'll be interesting," Sasha says, a slight gleam in her eye.

Connie looks over at her. "You're just mad about that cooking contest."

"I should have won!" Sasha shrieks, slamming her knife on the table. "Freaking horse face."

"I thought you admitted that your meat wasn't all that special," Connie points out. But he has to admit that her archery skills were impressive.

"Yeah, yeah, whatever." Sasha groans. "That meat was _so_ good though."

CRASH!

"What was that?" Reiner asks.

Annie and Bertholdt come running into the dining room. Bertholdt is sweating, whereas Annie just looks annoyed. "Commander Pixis is here," Annie explains. "He needs some help bringing in his stuff."

"Yeesh, what did he bring? It sounds like they dropped a titan head in there or something." Jean mutters as he stands up.

The rest of them clear away their plates and follow him out the door. Instead of a titan head though, a couple members of the Garrison are struggling with -

"A TV?" Armin's jaw drops. "Pixis brought a TV with him?"

"Isn't that fancy," Ymir says, raising an eyebrow. A couple members of the Survey Corps take the load away from the Garrison soldiers, which they aren't happy about because it makes them look weak. But they aren't about to complain because they might have broken some of Levi's teacups back there…

"Good afternoon." Pixis walks up with a serene smile on his face, taking a quick swig of alcohol.

"Sir!" They salute and he nods at them.

"Eren Jaeger, it's a pleasure to see you once again," he says, shaking Eren's hand.

"You too, Sir," Eren replies. Jean rolls his eyes.

"I hope you will prove to be a good contestant," Pixis continues, smiling as he walks away to speak to Levi.

"Contestant?"

-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-

"As part of my evaluation of the Survey Corps," Pixis begins, "you will all take part in… a competition of sorts."

"Get ready to eat my dirt, Kirschstein," Eren whispers, smirking.

Jean snorts. "In your dreams, Jaeger."

"There will first be a preliminary round, after which ten contestants will be chosen," Pixis continues. "Then there will be a series of five competitions, all testing different skills. There will only be one winner, and that soldier will win instant popularity."

The room erupts into a buzz, soldiers whispering about who they think will make it into the top ten.

"It's like training all over again," one cadet grumbles.

"The preliminary round will be a race through an obstacle course. Those with the most expert maneuver abilities will make it to the top ten and into the competition!" Pixis smiles and points to the TV, which has been set up in the mess hall. "Every one of your teammates will be watching from this fine television here."

Armin sucks in a long breath. "So what, is this going to be some sort of reality TV show?" he asks to no one in particular.

"May the best soldier win!"

The first round begins after lunch. All of the cadets double check to make sure that their 3DMG are working properly. Levi grabs some of Sasha's stashed biscuits and some of his favorite tea and sits back to enjoy the show.

"Mikasa's totally going to come in first," Eren mutters. "She probably doesn't even want to take part in this stupid thing."

"Well, she'll make the Survey Corps look good," Krista mentions.

"True, but she makes the rest of us look bad."

"Comparing us to Mikasa is like comparing us to Levi," Connie says, who's checking his reflection in the mirror to make sure there's not a hair on his head. Hair increases air resistance, after all.

"This will be a race," Pixis announces, "so the first ten to reach the finish line will continue!"

The cadets stand poised. Bertholdt is sweating up a flood, Annie and Mikasa stare challengingly at each other and Eren almost falls out of the tree.

3...

2...

1...

BAM!

The green flare shoots off into the sky, smoke gathering among the clouds. The sounds of whooping and cheering can be heard, along with the metal hiss of the 3DMG.

"Last one there's a rotten potato!" Connie shouts, grinning.

"I am not a potato girl!" Sasha shrieks, giving chase. "You are going down!"

The two of them speed past Jean, who grits his teeth and presses the button for more gas.

The obstacle course isn't too difficult. Some aberrant branches, cardboard titans, etc. The main obstacles are really all of the cadets who are trying to get around each other while still in close proximity.

Mikasa comes in first. No one is surprised.

Sasha comes in second, with Connie half a second too slow, because Sasha isn't one to lose a race. Especially if it's against Connie.

Annie slices through a couple seconds later, with Reiner close behind.

Armin comes in sixth, Krista is seventh, and Ymir is eighth. Bertholdt crashes in into ninth place (he caught a lot of leaves and small branches along the way).

No sign of Jean or Eren yet. Half a minute later they can be seen in the distance, along with a couple other cadets.

"Why did it take them so long?" Connie wonders.

Ymir rolls her eyes. "Probably tried to do cool tricks in the air or something. Idiots."

Armin isn't sure who he should cheer for. Both Jean and Eren are his friends, but only one of them can qualify.

For a second it looks like Eren will win, but Jean suddenly comes up behind, flashes his signature smirk, and shouts, "See ya, Jaeger!"

And all Eren can see is red. The red ribbon of the finish line, the same color as Mikasa's scarf, the red of his burning anger.

Everyone cheers when Jean passes the finish line, except for Armin and Mikasa who linger behind to talk to Eren. Well, there's not much talking, listening to him mutter curses is more like it.

"Mikasa, do you always come in first because your scarf is the same color as the finish line?" Eren blurts.

"I don't think that's how it works, Eren." Armin sighs. He really wonders about his friend sometimes.

"Or maybe it's just because she's wearing something around her neck! Levi Heichou also wears something around his neck! And he's humanity's strongest soldier! Maybe that's why commanders wear bolo ties!"

"Eren, if you work hard, it doesn't matter what you have around your neck..." Armin tried to reason with his friend. Sometimes he really wonders what will happen to humanity when Eren has it on his shoulders.

Eren growls angrily but doesn't say anything more.

But then the next day...

"Jaeger, what are you wearing?" Jean raises an eyebrow, because Eren and bowties really don't go together. Where did he even find something like that?

"Shut it, Kirschstein," Eren growls. "Just wait until I blow right past you next time we race."

Jean snorts. "What does that have to do with anything? And yeah right. But for now...you're going to have to watch me on TV."

Eren's mood is considerably worsened when Levi tells him that since he's not in the competition, he has time to clean the boys' dormitories.

"And take the stupid bow tie off," he snarls.

-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-

"The first challenge will be as follows!" Pixis announces. He's having a little too much fun being on stage with a microphone. He also assigned soldiers to decorate the stage so it would look camera ready.

"In order to test your accuracy and reflexes, we're going to have a little," he pauses for dramatic effect, "paint ball fight."

Whispers break out inside the mess hall, where all the cadets and superior officers are gathered to watch the competition.

"Heck yeah!" Connie exclaims. "This is my calling in life!"

"Gives us an excuse to hit Jean in the face. Might knock some sense into the guy," Sasha whispers back.

"Only one rule," Pixis continues. "No headshots."

"Dang!" Sasha mutters.

"Each competitor will have a certain color. During this round, two people will be eliminated. The person who hits the least number of people, and the person who getts hit the most."

Krista bites her lip nervously. "I'm not sure if I can do this."

"Don't worry." Ymir elbows Krista lightly. "Let your ferocious side show. They'll never know what hit them."

"Guns at the ready..."

"Wait, shouldn't we spread out first?" Bertholdt shouts, panicked.

"Nah, that would take the fun away from it!" Pixis replies. "Go!"

It's complete and utter chaos. Reiner narrowly misses getting nailed in the face, and Connie and Sasha instantly target Jean before he even has a chance to react. They're wearing some protective armor, but there will be bruises tomorrow.

"Duck!" Armin shouts to Mikasa, who does as she does. Behind her, Sasha gets hit right on her back. The force knocks her into Connie, which creates a domino effect, causing Annie to face-plant in the grass.

Of course… this pretty much gave them all a death sentence. Annie makes people face-plant, not the other way around.

Krista is hit the least often. Mostly because Ymir will shoot point blank if any of them tries to hit Krista. The only time she is hit is by accident. Unfortunately… she hits the least amount of people as well.

Eren thought that Bertholdt would get hit the most often, just because he's tall and kind of clumsy, but Reiner is literally a rainbow when the gong (yes Pixis went the whole nine yards) sounds. He's covered from head to toe in every color possible.

Even so, they're all bruised but happy at the end of the day. Except Eren, who's just mad that he missed out on a golden opportunity to attack Jean. And of course, he has to do the laundry. He is really starting to question why on earth they wear white pants.

-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-

"You have got to be kidding me," Annie mutters. They are really beginning to question Pixis' methods.

"As a member of the Survey Corps," Pixis continues, "it's important to have excellent communication skills. Which is why we're playing this game. Simply take the message and pass it down the line. Hopefully it emerges the same way it started.

"Points will be deducted for speaking too loudly. The ability to communicate quietly is important. You may only say the message once, and points will be deducted if you were the one who messed up the message."

They sit in a random order, which will be rearranged during the game. Mikasa is first.

She makes a puzzled face when the message is delivered, but passes it on to Ymir.

"Hn, this should be interesting," Levi says to Hanji. "Those brats never listen to what I say. And I think they've learned to tune out any useless information after listening to you ramble."

In the corner, with his broom, Eren hears what Levi says and snickers. People tune out Hanji and she never notices.

Meanwhile…

"Chins fry wood and laid gin?" Sasha raises an eyebrow. That makes no sense whatsoever.

Rico Brzenska sweatdrops. She's helping out with the competition, which is the last thing she wants to be doing, but it was a direct order from the Commander. "Not even close…"

"Ugh, Connie you messed it up!" Sasha grumbles.

"I did not!" Connie protests. "I specifically said: Genes buy good genies and bad genies!"

"What was the actual phrase?" Armin asks.

"Jean bought jeans to pile up in Jean's pile of clean jeans and dirty jeans," Rico reads.

Jean resists the urge to facepalm. Of all the tongue twisters they could have picked…

"Well… at least we kept the 'j' sound," Armin says.

"This is stupid," Annie mutters. Of course, now Connie thinks that's what the message is and passes that on. It comes out slightly mangled, but not unrecognizably so.

"Sorry, Cadet Leonhardt. Points off for you."

"Whatever."

As soon as Armin tells her the next message, Annie groans because anything associated with these words always makes Bertholdt laugh like an idiot. Bertholdt is quite tall, so she also has to stand up and deliver the message.

"The colossal titan cooks corn at the tipsy titan cafe."

The sentence made no sense whatsoever. This one she does purposely say it quieter so that Bertholdt won't start laughing, but she accidentally grumbles, "You're a colossal idiot," because she's annoyed that he starts laughing at stuff like this.

And of course… he hears. And starts laughing so hard he almost runs into Armin. Everyone looks at each other, confused. This is pretty out of character for Bert… usually he's pretty quiet.

Since the messages area displayed on the TV for the viewers, Reiner facepalms so hard that no amount of scrubbing with remove the red marks on his forehead for the next week.

In the end, Sasha's eliminated for laughing too much and accidentally talking too loudly, while Annie's dropped for just not caring and failing overall at the telephone game.

"Don't worry about it," Erwin says, putting his hand on Eren's shoulder, scaring the heck out of him. Erwin arrived the day before to observe the competition. Personally, he finds it extremely amusing, but he has to stay professional. "There's always something not even Mikasa Ackerman can do."

"What?" Eren asks, but the commander is already walking away. "Yeesh," he mutters, straightening his bowtie. "He's really gotta stop doing that."

-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-

Surprisingly, the stage is actually pretty normal the next day. The curtains are drawn, and there aren't any balloons or crazy noisemakers from Sina. They're all wondering how on earth Sina has time to make all of those things. While they're off killing titans, Sina's playing with paintball guns.

"Today you will be paired up," Pixis starts.

Jean perks up at this. Please let me be paired up with Mikasa, he prays. If he's paired up with Mikasa, first of all he has a chance to make a move on her, and second of all, he's safe from any sort of elimination.

"The challenge...A DANCE OFF!" The curtains part and confetti streams down on everyone. "During the event of a titan attack, you will face many aberrants. In order to fight them, it may require some creativity and improvisation. You and your partner will have one hour to prepare a dance, but as you face the other challengers, you may have to diverge from your original routine to effectively win. The judges - myself, Keith Shadis, and Rico Brzenska - will score you according to the difficulty and creativity of your dance."

Jean inwardly groans. Shadis is one of the judges? Talk about biased. He doesn't think even Mikasa could save him from losing.

The challenge is ridiculous. But hilarious for the people watching. Reiner and Sasha have pretty much lost it. Annie is just glad she was eliminated last round. But she will certainly enjoy Mikasa's pain.

"The partners!" Rico announces. "Connie and Ymir. Mikasa and Jean."

Under his breath, Eren curses. "That horse face is going to have too much fun with this."

"And finally, Armin and Bertholdt. Good luck. You have one hour."

"I can't believe this," Eren groans.

Before the camera stops rolling, Pixis turns to address the audience. "For this round, you have a chance to decide the fate of the contestants! Just take an electronic device and visit the Garrison website! Your votes, along with the scores of the judges will determine who wins, and who goes home!"

"How come the Survey Corps doesn't have a website?" Erwin asks.

"Why would we need a website?" Levi mutters snarkily. "What would we put on there? Profile pictures of dead titans?"

The online voting is Eren's chance to finally bring Jean down from his pedestal. Except for the fact that he is also paired up with Mikasa so if Eren votes against her that would make him a terrible brother.

But she doesn't even care about this dumb competition, he thinks. He's pretty sure that Armin and Bertholdt will do even worse though. Because Bertholdt has insane stage fright and Armin… can he even dance?

But man do they prove him wrong. The audience is blown away, cheering and clapping their hands to the beat. Armin does a little guitar solo, sliding down to his knees and jamming to the electric riffs. Bertholdt might be awkward on stage, with almost robotic movements at first, but soon enough, he loosens up and he makes up moves, even surprising Armin, because they didn't practice them.

Ymir and Connie are a brand all their own. Decked out in sunglasses and sparkles, they really bring on the Survey Corps FABULOUS. Naturally, Pixis gives them a perfect score. Even Shadis has to admit that "that weird bald kid has some moves".

Everyone is in anticipation for Mikasa and Jean's routine. Bertholdt has already given them all quite a surprise, so maybe Mikasa will too.

Jean thought that since Mikasa is so strong and flexible, they'd be able to do some complicated lifts. But Mikasa won't let him touch her. Not to mention she has the world's most impressive expression of contempt on her face. Jean… well he has some decent moves but he's not very musically inclined so he nds up extremely offbeat. Everyone still finds it extremely amusing, especially Levi, who will never _ever_ let Mikasa forget this moment in time.

Obviously… Jean and Mikasa are kicked out. Eren anonymously signs onto multiple electronic devices and votes them off, to which Mikasa is eternally grateful.

Connie, Ymir, Armin, and Bertholdt each have their own new fan club though. So… everyone wins… for now.

Except Jean. He's the horse that never wins races.

-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-

"The long awaited semi-finals are today. All the remaining contestants have all proved their worth. After this day… only two will remain to battle for the title as Survey Corps Champion. This next challenge will evaluate your ability to lie and deceive," Pixis announces.

Ymir smirks. Deception and enigma is her specialty.

"You will be given an object. You have to give your partner clues as to what it is… except you could be lying, or you could be telling the truth. Your partner's job is to figure out which it is. If they guess correctly, they have a point, but if you lie successfully, you will earn the point. First two people to get to three points win."

"I think Ymir and Armin will win," Sasha muses. They're all in the mess hall again, curiously awaiting the events of this competition. "Bertholdt's too nervous for this kind of thing. And Connie's as obvious as they get."

"I bet Ymir won't win." Reiner smirks.

"Are you crazy? Betting against Ymir? She'll have your head," Jean mutters, shaking his head.

"Nah, she doesn't have to know. Whad'ya say, Sasha?"

"You're on!" Sasha grins. Taking up bets hasn't gotten her into too much trouble. Yet.

Armin goes first, against Connie. He's given what looks like a titan figurine made of clay. He has the advantage of going first, because Connie has no idea what kind of objects they'll be giving them.

"It reminds me of a voodoo doll," Armin explains. "It's made out of cloth, and it has a creepy smile on its face."

Connie thinks hard about this. Armin's putting thought and detail into his explanation, so that might mean he's lying. Of course, he doesn't know how good Armin is at lying, so he could also be telling the truth and putting in detail to throw him off.

"I think you're… telling the truth!"

"Nope," Armin replies, holding up the figurine so Connie can see. "It's actually a titan made of clay."

"Dang," Connie mutters. One point for Armin. Sasha is right in guessing that Connie would lose, because Armin cleverly outsmarts him by using reverse psychology because why not.

"U-um it's some gelatin substance with a smiley face drawn on it," Bertholdt stutters.

Ymir smirks and confidently declares it a lie, earning herself a point. It's actually a bouncy ball (where they're getting all these things, no one will ever know).

This trend continues until they're all tied up. Sasha groans because if she loses, she has to be Reiner's personal servant for the day.

Ymir yawns. Bertholdt is probably the easiest person to guess, so Sasha is still confident that she'll win. "It's...a tissue box," he says, still sweating nervously. "And it's got a generic crisscross design on the box."

"Ugh, another lame object?" Ymir grumbles. "I think you're telling the truth."

"Actually," Bertholdt says, holding up a sweat-soaked cravat in his hands. "I was lying."

"WHAT? NO!" Sasha shrieks, appalled. Reiner does a little victory dance.

"So…Braus," he starts. "The first thing you're going to do tomorrow is polish my boots, cook me breakfast, and take over my chores, yea?"

Sasha just flops down on the couch and groans.

-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-

It's the final day. Both Armin and Bertholdt are wondering how the heck they made it to the final round.

Today, Pixis is wearing some crazy getup with bright colors and a funky hat. "Of course, being in the Survey Corps it's important to have good knowledge pertaining to many subjects. So, our final challenge will be trivia based. I will ask a question, and whoever pushes the button first will answer. The more difficult the question, the more points that will be awarded."

Eren rolls his eyes. "Well, no use betting on this one," he says to Sasha. "It's a no brainer who's going to win." Even if Pixis asked the most obscure and ridiculous questions, Armin would win, Eren thinks.

Bertholdt actually doesn't do too badly, but Armin is quite a bit ahead by the time they've reached the final question.

"For this last question, whoever answers correctly will earn double points. The question is this: Who is the colossal titan?"

Cue the floodwaters! They can't be asking this question! Bertholdt panics.

Armin tentatively pushes the button. He does have a lot of titan theories… he's one of the only people who actually listens when Hanji rants. "Well it's possible that he could be a titan shifter like Eren…"

Pixis shakes his head. "Good answer, Cadet Arlert, but I'm afraid that's not the answer we're looking for. Cadet Fubar? Would you like to try?"

"U-um," Bertholdt stutters. "I'm not sure… but obviously it's not Levi Heichou."

Pixis laughs, and after a couple minutes, he wipes the tears from his eyes and says, "That's a brilliant answer. I'll give it to you!"

And so Bertholdt wins, just barely scraping by with first place. Reiner and Annie are in shock. Levi's probably going to give Bertholdt laundry duty for the next month for that little comment he made.

"Captain Levi, congratulations on training such fine cadets. It's been a pleasure." Pixis smiles after the competition ends. "And keep the TV," he continues, walking away. "I'm sure you'll find a good use for it."

Levi curses under his breath. He doesn't need any more infernal technology in his life.

At least he doesn't know about the laptop...

 


	12. Captain Meow

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Levi finds his spirit animal.

"Hey, guys, check this out!" Connie grins, running into the mess hall with the laptop. Sasha's not far behind, bringing in some snacks for all the cadets to share.

"What is it?" Reiner asks, coming over to see what Connie is so excited about.

"It's a quiz," Connie explains, "and it'll tell you what famous cat you are."

Jean raises an eyebrow. "Why would we want to know what kind of cat we are?"

"Don't horses love cats?" Eren jokes, earning a glare from Jean.

Armin takes the laptop from Connie. "I'd like to try." There are some interesting questions on there, but nothing too strange. "I got a cat named Maru," Armin says. "It's a cat from Japan who's addicted to boxes. Very fluffy."

The others gathered around to read the description. "Except for the part about boxes… I'd say it's pretty accurate," Mikasa comments.

"Adventurous, life-loving, curious, and entertaining," Sasha agrees.

"Where's Japan, though?" Bertholdt wonders. They all shrug. Who knew?

"I want to try it." Eren pushes Armin away from the computer and goes through the questions. Jean disagrees with some of the answers Eren chooses ("Your best quality is  _not_  your eyes.") but a glare from Mikasa shuts him up.

When Eren's result loads, not even Annie can keep her laughter in.

"Lil' Bub?" Reiner snorts.

"'Lil Bub's multiple health issues don't stop her from being a cute inspiration to cats and humans alike,'" Armin reads. "'She promotes spaying of housecats, and her cute pink tongue has conquered hearts around the world. Just like her, life has not been too easy on you, but despite the obstacles you encounter, you manage to be an inspiration to those around you. Good for you!'"

"Okay first of all," Eren protests. "I am not a girl!"

Jean snickers. "I don't know, Jaeger, I think you'd look pretty dashing in pink."

"And you do give some pretty inspirational speeches," Connie adds, referring to the last part of the cat description.

"This quiz is dumb," Eren grumbles.

"Could I try?" Krista asks.

"Go ahead," Ymir replies, grabbing Eren's collar to drag him away from the computer.

Krista's results are accurate to her goddess persona: a cat named Snoopy, described as the cutest cat the Internet has ever seen, melting hearts all over.

"That's our Krista for you." Ymir grins, slinging an arm over Krista's shoulder.

"You know," Sasha starts thoughtfully, "I wonder what result Heichou would get…"

"I bet it would be the grumpiest cat in existence," Reiner guesses.

"Let's do it!" Connie exclaims, and Krista lets him sit down in front of the computer. "First question: 'Your most prominent feature is…'"

"His frown," Eren says. "Definitely his frown."

Connie clicks the box and the quiz moves on. "'Which of the following best describes your attitude towards life?'"

"Grumpy," everyone choruses.

"How do you feel about the humans around you?"

"Tolerates them," everyone agrees.

"'Are you male or female?'"

"Female!" Sasha shouts, giggling.

"He  _can_  be such a girl sometimes," Mikasa snickers.

"But he's obviously male," Armin contradicts.

Jean rolls his eyes. "You and your logic."

Connie picks 'male' and continues. "'Which of the following best describes your goal in life?'"

They're not quite sure about this one. Levi obviously doesn't hold sleeping as his highest priority, and he brings as much joy and inspiration to others as the king does.

"Just say 'riches and fame'," Annie shrugs, eager to get this dumb thing over with.

"Plus, that cat in the picture is wearing a cravat," Ymir notes.

"Okay, next question! 'Is there anything you'd like to change about yourself?'"

"I don't think Heichou is really stuck up enough to say that he's perfect," Krista muses.

Mikasa rolls her eyes. "I think he might be."

Connie chooses the option: 'No, I am purrrrrfect' just because it's funny, and goes to the next question. "What best describes your style?"

"Elegant, I guess," Jean replies. It's a unanimous decision.

"Last question. What do you like most about cats?"

"Does Heichou even  _like_  cats?" Eren wonders.

Armin shrugs. "Well, cats are cleaner than dogs… so maybe?"

"I'm just going to choose the one about loyalty." The quiz results finish loading. Shown on the screen is an angry looking cat.

Sasha snorts with laughter. "Colonel Meow?"

"Named the Angriest Cat and has the longest hair on record," Jean smirks. "Pretty fabulous, if you ask me."

The last line makes them all break out into giggles. "'You should try not to be so angry at the world, and everything will be just great.'"

"We should put that on Heichou's birthday card." Connie quickly takes a screenshot so they'll always remember this moment.

"Sure, if you want to die," Reiner says.

Connie's about to argue, but they hear some very familiar footsteps and they instantly hide the laptop.

"I thought I told you brats to clean the kitchen," Levi growls.

"Yes, Heichou, right away!" they shout.

-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-

They're making their weekly trip into the city for groceries. For once, they all decide to stick together instead of splitting up to do their own shopping.

"Hey, guys! Look, a stray cat!" Before they can stop her, Sasha gives chase. Luckily, they don't have to run far because Sasha quickly picks it up.

Connie makes a face. "Wow, that's an unpleasant looking cat."

"Nah, I think he's cute!" Sasha exclaims. The cat has angry yellow eyes and black fur.

"Reminds me of that cat," Jean mutters. "Colonel Meow or whatever."

Suddenly, Sasha gasps dramatically. "This cat has this little patch of white fur on its chest that looks like a cravat!"

She holds up the cat for inspection.

Eren looks severely disturbed. "That's really creepy…"

"We should give the cat to Heichou," Reiner jokes. "They can be grumpy cats together."

Even though he was joking… they all decide it's a great idea anyways. Except Eren, who still finds the Levi look-a-like disturbing. They sneak the cat back to the HQ, give it a bath, gain some battle wounds in the process, and quietly stick the cat in Levi's office before dinner.

A couple minutes later, the door slams open and all of the dinner conversation dies down.

Levi walks in holding the cat by the scruff of his neck. "Alright, who the hell put this disgusting creature in my office?"

"It's not disgusting!" Sasha blurts. "It's adorable!"

"Very funny, Braus." Levi glares, but it's not as intimidating as usual because the expression on the cat's face is identical.

"It's a gift for you," Krista explains.

"We named it Captain Meow," Armin adds.

Levi cannot believe the ludicrous ideas his squad comes up with. He drops the cat down on the floor and leaves, saying, "You brats are taking care of this mangy thing."

Before Sasha can grab the cat, it quickly slips out the door, tail swishing with indignation.

-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-

Back up in his office, Levi kicks off his boots and settles in for a long night of paperwork. Thank goodness he got rid of that… thing. The stupid cat had been meowing insistently, even left a scratch on the door. If those runts don't keep track of the creature…

Just as he writes his first word, a very raspy tongue begins to lick his bare foot.

He leaps out of his chair faster than you could say 'colossal titan'. Staring innocently at him underneath the desk is that  _blasted_  cat.

_How did it even get in?_  Levi looks at the door, but it hasn't opened since he first came in.

"Go away, cat," he snarls. To his horror, cat hair now covers the bottom of his pants.

Captain Meow simply lets out a strange sound that sounds almost like a snicker.

Growling, Levi picks up the cat again and drops it out the door. Unfortunately, he also gets a couple scratches on his previously flawless shirt in the process.

Cursing, he slams (and locks) the door behind him, taking a sip of tea to calm down.

But when he turns around in his chair to grab something, the cat is there again, meowing up a storm. It surprises himself so much that he spills scalding hot liquid down the front of his shirt.

"How the hell are you still here?" Levi shouts, ripping off his shirt. "Damn cat."

He narrows his eyes at the black feline, currently licking his paws and - is it  _laughing_  at him?

Levi finds another shirt and cravat and proceeds to ignore the cat. Well… he tries to anyway. Captain Meow finds it very amusing to weave around Levi's ankles while insistently meowing.

"No, I am not going to pet you," Levi growls.

But not even Levi can resist the charms of a cat. Eventually they have a grudging relationship. Because no matter what Levi tries to do to get rid of it, Captain Meow keeps coming back.

Plus… the cat can be pretty intimidating.

Later in the week, the cadets are milling about the mess hall, avoiding their chores while Levi is occupied in his office.

Eren and Sasha slip off into the kitchen to grab some more snacks. Suddenly, they hear a very loud meow.

"Awww, it's Captain Meow!" Sasha coos, dropping her biscuits on the counter.

"It still kind of creeps me out," Eren mutters. "It looks so much like Heichou."

He's reaching into the cabinet to grab a cup - one of Levi's favorite cups - and then he swears the cat… speaks to him. Fixing him with an eerie stare, saying,  _Don't do it, human. DON'T EVEN TRY._

Eren curses and almost drops the cup he's holding. "Sasha, I knew we shouldn't have brought it back with us!"

Sasha pets the cat affectionately. "Why not?" Even as he purrs, Colonel Meow still stares at Eren with angry eyes.

"It's like… the cat version of Heichou!" Eren sputters. "It's like it's possessed or something!"

Sasha snorts. "Don't tell me you're scared of a cat."

Eren reddens. "I'm not… it's just…" He's unable to come up with a viable excuse for his actions.

Sasha rolls her eyes. "Whatever, let's just bring these snacks back to the gang."

The cat continues to glare at Eren.  _Beware, human. I am always watching._

Levi has to admit that the cat may be one of the best gifts he has ever received. Eren's never been so diligent with his chores, even doing extra, because the cat likes to follow him around and scratch if he slacks on his work.

It was the perfect gift, after all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was inspired by this lovely quiz: http://www.playbuzz.com/amandapond10/which-famous-cat-are-you
> 
> And I was also bored and made some text messages based on Chapter 4: http://flyinghobbit.tumblr.com/post/89930534690/levi-heichou-jokes-are-much-better-than-chuck


	13. Maria Kart

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The 104th plays video games.

"Package for you, Heichou," Eren calls, knocking on Levi's door. He made a mistake of barging in unannounced one time and...well, let's just say he won't ever do that again.

"Come in, Jaeger."

Quickly double checking that his shoes are clean, Eren steps inside the office.

"It's from Commander Erwin," Eren explains.

Levi examines the package and raises an eyebrow. "That will be all, Jaeger," he growls, and Eren scurries away. He didn't want to be the one who delivered the package but they drew straws and he was forced to trudge up to Levi's domain.

As soon as Eren closes the door, Levi opens the package. There's a note from Erwin, reading:

_Levi,_

_An associate of mine, I. H., asked me to forward this package to you. He told me that the cadets deserve a good break now and then._

_Erwin_

Levi peels away layers of plastic wrapping to reveal what he recognizes as two video game controllers, a game console, and a disk.

Erwin is crazy if he thinks Levi is going to give those brats a  _video game_. Then again, it isn't like he wants the dumb thing anyways.

-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-

"Levi's coming!" Sasha hisses, running into the dining hall. Immediately they commence standard procedure.

Jean takes out the bowl of fruit from under the table, while Armin hands their contraband (aka the Laptop) to Reiner, who puts it behind his back and stands against the wall. They chose him because he is buff enough (and tall enough) to hide it behind his back inconspicuously.

So Levi walks in to see them all calmly chewing on apples and Sasha hitting Connie on the head with an orange. Nothing to see there.

"You brats can do whatever you want with this," he growls, dropping the box on the table. "But I'd better not find it on the floor."

As soon as Levi leaves, they dive on the package.

"Whoa," Armin breathes as he surveys the contents. "I can't believe Levi Heichou gave us this!"

"What is it?" Mikasa asks.

"It's a video game!" Jean exclaims, glad to have the answer to Mikasa's question.

"Guess we can finally put that TV to good use," Sasha grins, shifting one of the controllers in her hand.

"Wonderful. The reality TV shows the Garrison puts on make me want to puke." Ymir grimaces.

"So how do we play?" Connie takes the controller from Sasha and starts messing around with the buttons.

"Jean, do you know how to play this?" Armin asks, holding up the CD case. The game is called  _Maria Kart_.

"Yeah, I've read about it," Jean replies. "I can show all you noobs how to play."

"We should probably set up the system first," Krista reasons.

They all step back and let Armin do his thing, because if they even tried to mess around with the mass of wires behind the TV, they might accidentally blow something up.

Surprisingly, Sasha is very technologically savvy. When Armin can't figure out how to rewire something, she steps in and finishes it in seconds.

Everyone gapes at her. "Read it online," she shrugs.

Jean slides the disk into the sleek black device. The crest of Wall Maria shows up, with a titan chasing a small car.

"Who wants to race me?" Jean smirks, knowing this is one race he will always win.

"Ha, I could beat you with my eyes closed," Eren says, taking the second controller.

"Idiot," Annie mutters.

Jean chooses a racecar that is half blue and half white, with the Wings of Freedom on the hood. Eren selects a red and black car with white lightning bolts.

And they're off!

Of course, Eren has no idea how to play, so the first thing he does is turn the car into a wall, while Jean zooms past him, whooping with glee. Eren growls in frustration and pushes random buttons on the controller. Jean wins before Eren can even figure out how to get the car to move forward. He does self destruct the car a couple times though.

"What the hell?" Eren mutters a plethora of colorful curses.

"I want to try," Mikasa says, taking the seat next to Jean, who tries not to faint. Behind her, Eren crosses his arms and scowls so hard it could rival Levi's glare.

Mikasa  _creams_  Jean. Unknowingly, she picks the racecar with the lowest stats, but she still beats him, driving away from the explosion caused by the turtle shell bomb. Not as badly as he beat Eren, of course.

"There is nothing she isn't good at," Jean groans, as Armin takes his place. Armin pats his shoulder reassuringly. Armin gives Mikasa a better challenge than Jean did. Mikasa learns fast, so she easily learns the controls but Armin is relatively experienced with the game after reading about it online. It's quite the rage in Sina.

They all take a couple tries with the game. It's harder than it looks but everyone gets the hang of it.

Well... _almost_  everyone.

"Uh...Bert?" Reiner coughs. "I think you broke it."

"I didn't mean it!" Bertholdt sputters, dropping the controller, which is now covered in sweat. Luckily, Annie thought ahead and brought towels. "All I did was release one of those weird turtle shells… I didn't know it would break the scenery!"

Armin still looks bewildered. "I didn't know that was possible..."

"Yeesh, what do you have against walls?" Eren adds.

Bertholdt goes pale. "C-can you fix it?"

"I guess if we restart the game, the track will reset," Jean suggests.

Luckily, it does. Or else they'd be driving on a torn up track, courtesy of Bertholdt.

"This would be a lot more fun if we could all play together," Sasha sighs dejectedly.

Jean smirks. "What, so we can all backstab each other and get away with it?"

"Of course," Sasha grins.

"There's no way we can get enough money to buy that many controllers though," Krista sighs.

"Actually," Armin says slowly. "I might have a plan…"

-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-

"This is a terrible idea." Annie mutters.

"No, actually, I'm pretty sure even Heichou would approve of this." Reiner smirks.

Sasha cracks her knuckles. "Alright, Armin! Let's do this!"

Eren sighs. "We are not seriously hacking into the Military Police's bank!"

"Don't be lame." Connie rolls his eyes. "Technically, it's not even stealing. We're taking back the years of funding that they owe us."

They just watch as Sasha and Armin take turns vigorously typing lines of green text. It's all gibberish to the rest of them, but every once in a while Sasha and Armin will cheer and high-five. The others just shrug and leave them to their thing. Reiner brings out some cards, Eren and Jean get into a fight (everyone's able to tune them out at this point), and Krista sews some fashion lines for her Tumblr.

"We got it!" Sasha cheers, jumping up and running around, almost causing Connie to drop the water he's carrying.

"All the money we need is now safely kept in a secure bank account," Armin adds, elated.

"Nice job, Armin!" Jean grins.

"They won't be able to trace it back to us, right?" Mikasa asks.

Sasha shakes her head. "Nope. We made sure of it."

Ymir narrows her eyes. "You two better not start hacking into other accounts too."

"No worries, Ymir." Sasha brushes it off with a wave of her hand. "Not unless you get on my bad side," she adds with a pointed smirk at Connie.

Connie backs away slightly - the maniacal gleam in Sasha's eye is akin to the look in her eyes when she sees food she really wants.

Armin turns around again. "Alright, now we've got everything ordered. It should arrive in a couple days."

-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-

"Squad Leader!" Moblit waves a clipboard in Hanji's face. "Our funds have increased dramatically in the past week! Do you know how this happened?"

Hanji shrugs. "Nope, I have no idea. Maybe old Nile had a change of heart? Ah! I almost forgot, I need to go analyze some blood samples!"

She rushes off while Moblit runs after her, papers flying everywhere.

Krista, who heard the conversation, relates it to the others. They laugh because really, they should hack the MP more often.

"The package arrived!" Reiner runs in carrying a large box, followed by Annie and Bertholdt.

"We almost ran into Levi Heichou on the way up," Bertholdt mutters, gratefully taking the napkin Annie hands him. Eren wonders if the reason she wears a hoodie all the time is so that she can put a stack of napkins in the pocket for Bertholdt.

They crack open the layers of packaging to reveal…

" _Nine_  controllers?" Eren's jaw drops.

Armin nods. "Yes, there are eleven of us and we already have two-"

"I know how to do math!" Eren grumbles. "But where are we going to put all these? I thought we were just going to get a couple more?"

Jean elbows him. "But that's no fun."

"Don't touch me, Kirschstein!"

"Calm down!" Connie shouts before the two start killing each other. "You can get your revenge by throwing out banana peels or something."

"Oh yeah, Jaeger, I will enjoy this." Jean smirks.

They quickly connect the controllers to the console, and the game starts up. They're not-so-conspicuously crowded in front of the television. There are three teams. Team Red consists of Eren, Mikasa, Connie, and Bertholdt. Team Blue is Armin, Sasha, and Annie. Krista, Ymir, Reiner, and Jean are on the Green Team. Sorting is mostly random.

"Oh no you don't," Annie mutters as Mikasa knocks her aside.

Connie whoops. "Look out world! Connie Springer comin' through!"

"Gah, who threw the banana?" Jean curses, swerving to avoid the cleverly placed banana peel.

Krista squeaks. "Ah! Sorry, Ymir!" She accidentally knocks Ymir over with a turtle shell. She still doesn't exactly know which buttons do what.

"No problem," Ymir mutters, taking control of her vehicle again.

It's a series of four races, so at the end of three, the Green Team is in the lead, much to Eren's dismay.

"Okay, the final race is on...Rainbow Road."

_Five seconds later..._

"WHAT THE HELL IS THIS?" Reiner shouts as he careens off the side of the multi-colored road for the third time since the game started.

"The rest of the roads are child's play compared to this!" Armin adds, making a sharp turn.

"Armin why did you choose this?" Sasha wails.

"I just died a sixth time!" Jean yells, angry to see that Eren is ahead of him. "I'm not a  _cat._  I don't have nine lives!"

"You don't have to tell us that," Connie replies. "We all know you're a horse."

Of course… the commotion attracts attention. Levi is calmly taking a drink of tea while catching up on paperwork, when a very loud shout comes from downstairs.

"BERTHOLDT! WHY ARE YOU SUCH A COLOSSAL IDIOT?"

He almost drops his drink, and stomps down to find out what the brats are up to now.

Just as he's about to yell at them (they might not hear him anyways) he sees  _it_.

The Laptop.

If the cadets turned around, they would see the steam pouring out of his ears and his very red face.

_It must have come from Hell_ , he decides. It can't even be destroyed by fire.

Well… if he can't destroy it… then he'll just have to lock it away forever. Acting quickly, he takes the laptop and rushes out of the mess hall. The brats are still screaming at each other behind him.

Back in the safety of his office, Levi opens a secret panel under his desk, which reveals a heavily protected safe.

He types in a 12 letter password, slips the laptop in and locks the safe again. Then he sits back to enjoy his tea, finally at peace.

The cadets don't notice the laptop's gone until later that night.

"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know you can't play Mario Kart with 11 people, but... I'm breaking the rules for this.


	14. Rescue Mission

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After Levi stole the Immortal Laptop, the cadets are off to find it and rescue it once again.

"Where could it be?"

"I swear, it was right there!"

"I knew playing Maria Kart was a bad idea!"

All the cadets are in a panic. They're facing a major crisis, because… well, the Laptop has simply disappeared.

"What are you brats yelling about?" Levi walks into the mess hall with a glare.

"Sorry, Heichou," they mutter.

Levi smiles. "It's perfectly alright."

The world must have stopped where it stood and all the titans must have dropped dead because Levi. Was.  _Smiling._

They just stare at him, and Eren almost passes out. It isn't that Levi's smile was particularly creepy, it's just so  _weird._

"Uh, you're in a good mood today, sir," Armin notes, in an attempt to break the silence so they aren't just staring at him awkwardly.

"Yes, I am, Arlert. Got anything to say about it?"

"N-no, sir!" Armin sputters.

"Good." Levi smirks at them. "You know, why don't all of you take today off?"

They gape in shock. Who sold their soul to make  _this_  miracle occur? Levi walks away, and they swear they hear him humming.

As soon as he's far enough, Ymir slams the door shut. "Okay, what the hell is going on?" she hisses.

"Don't ask me!" Jean groans. "This is the weirdest thing that's ever happened."

"Tell me about it," Connie agrees. "And we've been through some pretty weird stuff."

Annie rolls her eyes. "Isn't it obvious?"

"What's obvious?" Bertholdt wonders.

"He's the one who took the Laptop."

Eyes widen. "That does make sense," Mikasa muses, for once agreeing with Annie.

Reiner sighs. "Then, I guess we'd better find out a way to get it back."

-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-

"Okay, so we're going to need a couple teams," Armin directs. "One group will help with distraction, and the rest of us will search his office, room, and anywhere else he could possibly have hidden the Laptop."

"How are we going to get into his room?" Krista asks.

Connie grins, holding up a key. "For someone who's always so attentive to everything Hanji does, Moblit is surprisingly unobservant. Sasha and I will help out with distraction. Anyone want to help?"

"We'll help," Reiner replies, gesturing to Bertholdt and Annie as well.

"Krista and I can search his room," Ymir volunteers.

"Okay," Armin nods. "Take Jean too."

Ymir looks less than pleased, but she agrees. "Fine. We'll take the horseface too."

Jean opens his mouth to retort, but Mikasa pushes in before Jean starts yelling again. "Then Eren and I will look in his office." She's been waiting for a chance to learn Levi's secrets anyway.

"I'll help you guys," Armin says. "And if either of us finishes searching a room and doesn't find anything, then move on to somewhere else in the building."

Everyone nods, determined to make this mission a success.

"We'll buy you as much time as possible," Sasha declares. "Don't worry, I've got a few tricks up my sleeve."

Jean groans. "If your so-called-tricks involve making huge messes, then he's just going to make us clean it up."

Sasha waves it away. "Don't worry, it won't be anything  _too_  bad."

"Oh, wonderful," Ymir mutters.

"If we get the Laptop back, Heichou will be mad regardless," Eren sighs. "So we might as well have one small victory."

And with yet another motivational speech from Eren Jaeger… they set off to rescue the Immortal (or Infernal) Laptop.

-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-

"You know, I've always wondered why Heichou seems to have so many cravats," Jean whispers as they head up the stairs.

"Um, doesn't he wash them?" Krista wonders.

"No, that's not what I mean. I'm just saying that he must keep a lot of cravats in his pocket or something. Like, it's always in such pristine condition. Even after a long training session, or being outside in the rain."

"You ask stupid questions, Kirschstein." Ymir punches him. "Just concentrate on the mission."

Just then, they hear a loud whoop from outside. When they glance out the window, Sasha flies by on her 3DMG.

"What is she doing?" Jean mutters with a condescending tone.

"Ugh, she'll kill herself before we even find anything." Ymir pulls them along. "Let's go!"

Quickly, they unlock the door to Levi's room, glancing to make sure no one's around. His room is nothing special. Crease-free bedsheets and pillows, a lingering smell of bleach, spotless bathroom.

Jean checks Levi's drawers, careful not to disturb the perfect stacks. "He might have hid it underneath here," he mumbles to himself, remembering how Armin used to hide the Laptop under his shirts.

He doesn't find anything, but he does find a couple of cravats. "Crap," he mutters when he accidentally messes up the folding of one. He picks it up to refold, but it snags on a nail sticking out of the wood and won't budge.

Angrily, Jean tugs on the cloth, and there is a terrifying rip. He drops the cloth to the ground in horror. Krista looks up from searching under the bed and gasps.

"Kirschstein, what did you do?" Ymir growls as she walks out of the bathroom.

"It was an accident, I swear!" Jean is starting to sweat as much as Bertholdt does.

"What are we going to do?" Ymir hisses. "He'll know we were here now!"

"We can throw it away?" Krista suggests. "He'll never notice… right?"

"I'm pretty sure he's just as protective of his stupid cravats as he is about everything else," Jean groans. "But… I guess we could try?"

They huddle around the cravat, worrying about their current situation, when suddenly there is a faint 'pop!' and the cravat… fixes itself.

"What just happened?" Krista squeaks.

"Did it just...regenerate?" Jean wonders in disbelief.

"Like a titan..." Ymir notes under her breath.

"L-let's worry about that later," Krista suggests, picking up the cravat and refolding it. "Just put it back and let's get out of here!"

Jean nods, closing the drawer carefully before they sprint away from Levi's room and the secrets it holds.

-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-

Meanwhile, Connie and Sasha are having a ball. This is the one chance they have to do every daring thing they've ever wanted to do, plus prank Levi and generally piss him off.

Annie and Reiner enjoy it as well, but they aren't so enthusiastically showing off. They definitely aren't like Bertholdt though - this is the worst possible job for him. They work as backup - warning the two troublemakers when someone is nearby, holding trip wires for the booby traps, etc.

"Oh crap!" Sasha and Connie come running back to the broom closet that serves as their HQ (which is a really bad idea, if you think about it) panting.

"What happened?" Bertholdt asks. He's sweat gallons in the past hour.

"He's chasing us!" Connie gasps. "He caught us setting up our next prank."

"And I really wanted to see him doused in water too," Sasha whines.

"No time to mope about that," Annie snaps. "We've got to move."

Everyone except Annie tumbles out of the closet and sprints, sure that Levi is close on their heels. Splitting up, they branch off through the hallways, leaving Levi to decide who he should slaughter first.

Annie intercepts him, however, and since he hasn't noticed that she's part of the pranking group, he doesn't know that she's serving as the diversion. She stops him, showing him her 3DMG and asking him if he thinks it's broken or not. Of course, as Captain, it's his job to make sure all his cadets are safe, so he has to stop.

"Mission success," Connie grins, fist bumping Sasha.

"So what next?" Reiner asks, still breathing hard from their run.

"Well." Sasha has to resist the urge to laugh evilly. "I happen to have some glitter I got online…"

-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-

"Okay, Eren, you stand guard," Mikasa orders.

"What?" he hisses. "Why am I the one standing guard?"

_Because you're too loud and clumsy,_  Armin thinks, but instead, he says, "You have better ears. Don't worry, we'll let you know if we find anything."

It's a risky mission, sneaking into Levi's office. Of course, if he catches them they can just pretend that they were looking for him, but not if they mess up his stuff. At least it's just one room.

Armin examines the bookshelves, while Mikasa takes the desk. She examines all the files closely and Armin sighs. Couldn't she put off her never-ending quest to discover Levi's secrets until they found the laptop?

At one point he has to stand on Levi's chair in order to reach the very top shelves, which he personally thinks was a terrible on idea for Levi in the first place. He closes his eyes and prays that his shoes don't leave any permanent marks.

"Nothing," Mikasa sighs. "It's not here."

"I don't know where else it would be," Armin groans. Suddenly the chair shifts slightly, and Armin tumbles down, his shoulder hitting the side of the desk.

"Oh no!" He gasps, scrambling to his feet. Then he realizes something. "Wait a minute…"

He walks back over to the desk and raps on the wood. "It's hollow," he breathes. "There must be a secret compartment here!"

They call Eren over to see, and they open the panel in no time. "It's got to be in there!" Eren exclaims. "But… what's the password?"

"It's 12 letters long," Mikasa says.

Eren raises an eyebrow. "How did you - ah, forget it." He's gotten used to her ability to succeed at everything.

"I'm sure we could figure this out." Armin's forehead wrinkles, trying to think of any possible passwords Levi would come up with.

"Hurry, Armin!" Eren glances at the clock. "It's already been an hour. Heichou could have caught the others by now!"

Armin tries a couple of passwords, like a combination of Levi's full name or the Survey Corps. Nothing works. "It's no use." Fifteen minutes have passed. "It's probably something extremely personal, something no one would ever guess," Armin realizes.

For a moment they sit in silence, nothing but the ticking of the clock and the sound of Eren's fingers tapping impatiently on the floor.

Then Armin springs up. "I've got it!" he half-shouts, before realizing he's supposed to be quiet.

"Quickly!" Mikasa urges, and Armin types in the code.

It clicks and the door swings open.

"Nice job, Armin!" Eren praises.

Armin wraps the laptop in his arms, determined not to lose it again. "Let's go!"

As they run down the hallway, Eren asks, "So what was the password anyways?"

Armin shakes his head. "It doesn't matter."

But inwardly, he smirks, because the password was naturally the only thing Levi would make it.

Ererimustdie.


	15. Titan Love

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The 104th sends Captain Levi on some blind dates...

"I've got the perfect revenge on Heichou," Sasha announces, walking into the kitchen one morning with the Laptop in hand.

Everyone groans. This couldn't end well. Of course, they would love to get their revenge for getting their Laptop stolen, but they'd rather not make Levi angrier than they need to.

"No, seriously!" Sasha protests. "This won't even link back to us. And you never know… he might even thank us…"

"First of all," Jean starts, "You should stop walking around with the Laptop in plain sight."

Sasha waves a hand in his face. "No worries, Jean, I'm careful. Stealthy."

"Stealthy as a titan," Annie mutters.

"Let's hear her out," Connie suggests, always one to join in on revenge-driven plans.

Reiner crosses his arms and sighs. "Fine. What's your plan?"

Sasha opens the lid of the Laptop, clicks a couple things and then turns the screen to face them. "This!"

"A… dating website?" Armin raises an eyebrow, but slowly he realizes what she's planning. "You're going to set Heichou up with random people?"

Sasha grins. "Yes! He's so socially awkward, I figured we'd help him out a bit."

"This is stupid," Eren sighs. "I'm not taking part in this."

"Fine, be lame," Sasha calls as Eren walks away. "Come on, let's set up his profile!" she continues.

Krista and Ymir look at each other and shrug. If Sasha's dragging them into another one of her crazy plans, they might as well have fun with it.

"What a weird name for a dating website," Bertholdt comments.

"Yeah, who names the website 'TitanLove'?" Jean looks disturbed. "Sounds like something Hanji would be into..."

"Dunno, but it's super popular," Connie replies. "Actually, you don't even have to put your real name. It'sanonymous, and I guess people like the suspense of it or something…"

"Not even gender?" Jean asks. "That's freaking weird."

"Nope," Connie replies. "Basically they're blind dates."

"Okay, I've got all his basic info filled out," Sasha says. "We just have to fill in all his interests and stuff."

"Cleaning is number one." Jean cringes, remembering that he forgot to clean the stables yesterday…

"Glaring," Armin adds, and everyone else begins to give their suggestions.

"Telling people what to do."

"Drinking tea."

"Stealing my biscuits!"

Connie rolls his eyes. "Sasha, no one cares about your biscuits."

"Right, let's see if you say the same next time you ask me for some!"

"He also likes being short," Mikasa jokes as Sasha and Connie continue to bicker. That shuts them up and Sasha gasps.

"Mikasa!" she squeaks. "Did you just… make a joke?"

Mikasa just looks at her. "Yes…?"

"Uh, anyways." Armin breaks in before the situation gets any more awkward. "I finished filling in all the information we need. I think it's pretty accurate." Sasha hadn't even realized that Armin had grabbed the Laptop.

"Great, let's see if there are any matches!"

They only have to scroll through a couple of profiles before they find a good candidate.

"Well, their interests seem kind of compatible…" Armin muses. "It even says that they're in the military. I'm sure Heichou wouldn't mind that."

"Send them a message and see if they want to meet up anywhere," Sasha says excitedly.

Armin quickly sent the message. Surprisingly, they didn't have to wait long for a reply.

**User 10: There's a cafe in Wall Rose I'd like to try. Can we meet there tomorrow?**

"Shoot, what's Heichou's schedule?" Armin groans. He didn't think about this step of the plan.

"Moblit will know!" Connie exclaims. "I'll go ask."

When he runs off, Reiner rolls his eyes. "Poor Moblit. He always falls for Connie's tricks. Hasn't he stolen the master keys at least twice now?"

"Yes, he has." Sasha grins proudly.

Connie runs back, explaining that Levi's schedule is completely free.

"Great. I guess we'll have to forge a letter or something saying that someone wants to meet him at the cafe for business or something," Sasha says.

"But then when he realizes it's not for business he'll know we did it," Bertholdt protests.

Sasha deflates. "Yeah, that's true."

"What should we do then?" Annie asks.

Reiner clears his throat. "Well… I can do a pretty good voice impression of Commander Erwin," he says in Erwin's voice.

They stare at him. It's actually really good. "How exactly does that help?" Jean spits, not exactly pleased with how many flaws this plan has. He's not exactly a big fan of Levi's cleaning punishments.

"Well… we could call Heichou and say that Erwin needs to meet him secretly," Armin reasons.

"Where the hell would we get a phone?" Jean counters.

"We can use the landline we have here. But I know a way to block the number so Heichou won't know what number we're calling from."

"Let's do it!" Sasha jumps up excitedly. When Jean groans again, she glares at him. "Don't be such a party pooper, Jean."

"We can try this on one condition," Mikasa suddenly says. "There can only be a couple people in the room, or you loud mouths will give it away."

Jean throws up his hands. "Finally someone who makes sense!"

Armin sits there.  _Excuse me, am I invisible?_  he thinks, but doesn't say anything.

Reiner and Armin sneak into the room where the telephone is located, with the others standing farther down the hallway. Armin dials a few numbers and then punches in Levi's cell phone number.

" _Hello?"_  Levi growls. Reiner gulps, but Armin gives him an encouraging pat on the back.

"Levi? This is Erwin." Armin gives Reiner a thumbs up.

" _Erwin? Why the hell are you calling me? What number is this? I thought you had an important meeting in Sina today."_

"Plans have changed. I need you to meet me at Cafe Amour in Wall Rose. Tomorrow. 3 pm."

" _Fine, I'll be there."_  The line clicks and Armin breathes a huge sigh of relief.

They quickly hurry out of the room. "We're good!" Armin grins.

Now all they have to do is wait…

-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-

"I'm going out," Levi mutters.

"On a date?" Connie jokes, and Reiner accidentally knocks him off his chair trying to shut him up.

"Of course not, Springer," Levi snarls, slamming the door behind him.

"Why would you say that?" Jean hisses.

Connie rubs his head. "Hey, it's cool. He thinks it was a joke."

"We'd better leave if we don't want to miss the date," Mikasa says, putting on a cloak.

Armin found an alternate route to the cafe that he's  _sure_  Levi won't take and they arrive there just minutes before their Captain does. They find a nice hiding space (close enough to hear but not too close either) behind a cabbage stand and watch.

"Levi? What are you doing here?" a familiar voice asks.

"Wait," Armin sucks in a long breath. "Why is Commander Erwin here?"

"What?" Mikasa whispers. "He's actually here?!"

"What do you mean, what am I doing here? You were the one who called me here!"

"Crap." Reiner's jaw clenches. "This is bad. This is really bad."

Erwin wrinkles his forehead. "I'm here for a date."

Jean's jaw drops. "No way."

"What?" Levi looks very much annoyed.

"I think you know what a date is, Levi."

"Of course I know what a date is!" Levi spits. "But why did you call me here? If you think I'm going to help you somehow…"

"He's going to flip out when they realize they're actually supposed to be meeting each other…" Ymir mutters.

"Um, yeah," Jean agrees. "I suggest we leave. Now."

The scramble back to HQ, and Levi returns that night in a terrible mood - it started raining so he's completely drenched.

Without a word to any of them, Levi storms up to his office and slams the door.

Sasha high fives Connie, and Eren (who was informed of what had happened) sighs. This really can't end well. It's only a matter of time before Levi figures out it was them.

-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-

"No way, you are not doing this again!" Eren groans, wanting to bash his head against the wall.

"Oh, come on, this time, he really will be meeting Erwin!" Sasha waves away his comments.

"For a date. No. Freaking. Way."

Ymir snickers. "You never know, Heichou could swing the other way."

"It's a good way to get revenge," Mikasa says.

Eren looks at her in disbelief. "Mikasa, I can't believe you're siding with them!"

Her face darkens. "That shorty deserves it."

He throws his hands into the air and walks away. In his room, Eren takes Armin's phone and looks up the dating website.  _You know…all my friends have been such idiots lately… maybe I should meet new people._

And thus, he sets up his very own dating profile. Instantly, he gets a 100% match.

"Weird, I can't really see their interests. Well… if the site thinks it's a 100% match I guess I can give it a try…"

**User 104: Let's meet at the new restaurant that just opened in Rose. Let's meet there at 3pm?**  he types. It's not too expensive, so it's something he could afford.

**User 57: Sounds good. See you tomorrow.**

-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-

He's nervously examining his hair in the mirror the next day, when Mikasa catches him sneaking out of Levi's room.

"What are you doing?"

Eren reddens. "Uh… Mikasa! Fancy seeing you here…"

Mikasa gives him her 'don't change the subject' look. "Eren…"

"Okay, okay. I was just putting back Heichou's hairspray okay? My hair's acting up and I needed a quick way to fix it."

Now that she thinks about it, his hair does look less… tangled now.

"Why do you need hairspray?"

Eren's mouth formed words, but he couldn't think of a viable excuse. "Okay, I have a date alright? And I've got to go or I'm going to be late." He quickly pushes past her.

Mikasa spins sharply. "You have a date?"

"Leave me alone, Mikasa!" Eren grits his teeth and runs away.

She sighs. Always so stubborn.

-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-

Levi sighs. He received an email saying that he had some official business to attend to in Rose, so naturally he has to attend. Erwin warns him to "represent the Survey Corps well" but after the events of yesterday, all he really wants to do is drink tea and clean.

The rendezvous point is at a small restaurant in Rose. He has no idea why they chose that place but members of the Military Police are  _weird_  so in a way, it makes sense.

And then… he spots Eren.

"Jaeger? What are you doing here?"

Eren practically jumps ten feet into the air. "H-heichou!" he stammers. "Uh… nothing!"

Levi narrows his eyes. He knew something was up with yesterday's so-called-meeting with Erwin. "Have you and your stupid friends been messing with me?" he snarls, grabbing Eren by the collar.

"They have!" Eren squeaks. "I tried to stop them but they wouldn't listen!"

"Then what are you doing here?" Levi fixes him with a glare, and nearby bystanders start whispering.

"I-I have a date!"

"You what?" Levi suddenly drops Eren in shock. Putting two and two together, his eyes widen.

Eren comes to the same realization. "Oh… hell no!"

Levi turns on his heel and  _sprints_  back to HQ. The rest of the cadets watch in horror at the dust he kicks up.

"Oh, we're screwed now!" Connie panics. Eren glances over at them and stomps over. "Look what you guys have done! I told you so!"

Jean decides to turn the tables a little bit. "Yeah, but you were the one who was going to go on a  _date_  with him. What's that called on the Internet? Ereri?"

Eren wanted to drop through the ground and die. Or go on a rampage against the titans. "Shut  _up_ , Kirschstein."

They trudge home, debating what their next plan of action should be.

"Maybe it'd be best if we just ran away," Bertholdt mutters nervously. Annie hands him another tissue.

"Heichou's never done anything  _too_  bad to us," Krista says hopefully.

"Because Ymir protects you too much," Jean adds under his breath.

"We're totally screwed," Sasha wails. "He's never going to let this go!"

They tentatively open the door to HQ, expecting to have brooms and bleach thrown into their faces, but instead, the hallways are dead silent.

The only thing they hear is running water.

-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-

"He hasn't said  _anything_ ," Connie says in a lowered voice during breakfast the next morning. "I walked past him in the hallways this morning, and he didn't even  _glare_  at me!"

"But he knows we did it…" Jean trails off. "Ugh, he must be up to something!"

"Hey, guys?" Armin suddenly gets their attention. "Um… we just got another date request."

"Well obviously we have to deny it!" Sasha sighs. "He's not going to fall for the same trick more than once…"

"Besides, it's totally not worth it anymore," Reiner adds.

"This person is being really persistent," Armin says. "They insist on having a date tomorrow."

"What are we going to do then?" Krista asks.

"We could always send Jean as a replacement," Ymir smirks.

"No way!" Jean protests.

Eren snickers. "I think that's a great plan."

"You'd better watch it, Jaeger, or I'll tell the world that you  _willingly_  went on a date with Heichou. You know how the fangirls would react to  _that._ "

"Guys, stop!" Armin pleads as Eren moves to punch Jean across the face. "We don't need to cause a scene, or Heichou will have to come down."

That makes them rethink their moves, but they still glare at each other across the table.

"Okay, this person won't go away," Armin sighs. "But… I've got a plan."

-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-

"What do you want?" Levi growls, opening the door to see Armin standing there.

"Uh, sir, I'd just like to apologize," Armin says, lowering his head. "And I'd like to invite you to a restaurant in Rose to show you how sorry I am."

Levi eyes him, not sure if this is a trick or not. "Fine," he snarls. "Now get out of my sight."

Armin gives a quick salute and scrambles away.  _That was surprisingly easy,_  he thinks. Back in the mess hall, he gives the others a thumbs up. "We're all set for tomorrow," he announces.

"We're all set to dig our graves," Annie mumbles.

The next day, Armin digs out his nicest outfit and he and Levi set off. Levi's carrying a giant paper bag with him, but Armin doesn't really question it. The others follow close behind - Eren feels really bad for Armin so he comes along this time as well.

They are brought to their table, and then Armin excuses himself to "go to the bathroom", leaving Levi to look at the menu.

He doesn't do a lot of menu examination though, because unfortunately… there are other distractions. The restaurant is  _filthy_ , and as Levi's eyes make a round through the entire restaurant, he nearly has a heart attack because  _is that mold on the stove?_

Armin sneaks back and whispers, "His date should be here any minute now."

They wait for a few minutes more and Levi starts muttering about how he's going to clean the entire restaurant if he has to.

"Where are they?" Sasha wonders.

"No clue," Jean replies.

Then Levi looks around, smirks, and sets his paper bag on the chair opposite him, where Armin had been sitting a few minutes ago.

"Looks like it's just you and me," he says, opening the bag to reveal an industrial sized container of bleach.


	16. Prank War of Fate

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jean wakes up one morning to see some...unexpected guests.

_"Jean, come on! I've got a great idea!"_

_"Go away, Marco, let me sleep..."_

_"Don't be lazy, I promise this will be great."_

" _Ugh, five more minutes."_

"Jean Kirschstein, if you don't wake up right now, I will dump ice cold water on you."

Jean's eyes fly open. He opens his mouth to make a sharp retort to the person who woke him up from that dream but instead, he gets the shock of a lifetime.

"M-marco?!"

-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-

It's surreal. Jean falls out of bed in his rush to get to the door, bedsheet tangling around his ankle. As soon as he opens the door, he comes face to face with none other than Mina Carolina and Thomas Wagner.

"...Jean, are you okay?" Thomas asks. "You look like you've seen a ghost."

Jean just stares at her, pushing past and running down the hallway. He slams right into Eren, who shouts in surprise and almost falls down the stairs.

For once, Eren doesn't start another screaming match. They just look at each other, eyes wide with disbelief.

"Jean!" Marco calls. "Are you alright?"

Mikasa materializes out of nowhere, followed closely by Sasha. "He'll be fine." She grabs Eren by the collar and carries him down the stairs.

"We're just going to borrow, Jean for a moment," Sasha rushes, nearly giving him whiplash as she tugs him down the stairs.

"What is going on?" Jean shouts, just as he is dragged into a darkened room and the door behind him clicks shut.

"I don't know," Armin says shakily, turning on the single bulb that illuminates the broom closet they're standing in.

"That's why we're all here," Reiner sighs. "This is freaking weird."

"They can't be alive," Ymir mutters.

Eren leans against the door, rubbing his forehead. "This can't be happening…"

Then the door pulls open and they all tumble out of the closet in a heap. Looking down on the cadets, Levi growls. "What do you think you're doing?"

"Uh…gathering cleaning supplies?" Krista supplies unhelpfully.

"Heichou!" Suddenly,  _Petra Ral_ , turns the corner into the hallway. "I brought you some more tea."

And that...is when Bertholdt faints.

-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-

"Something weird is happening," Armin gulps. Luckily, they found another chance to speak alone, without the… unannounced guests.

"I didn't notice, Sherlock," Annie snaps.

"So what are we going to do?" Connie asks. "Act like it's perfectly normal?"

Sasha nods. "I don't think it's going to go over well if we ask why they're not dead…"

"Then I say we spend time with them," Eren suggests. "Just like old times. Figure out what's up. I mean… I know this whole situation is crazy but…I'm not exactly complaining."

They nod. Jean takes a deep breath and walks to the mess hall, all the while repeating names inside his head. Marco Bodt. Mina Carolina. Thomas Wagner. Franz Kefka. Hannah Diamant. Mylius Zeramuski. Nac Tius. All his friends from the 104th Trainee Squad.

"Hey, Jean," Marco smiles brightly and waves. "Where are the others?"

Jean clears his throat. "U-uh, they're coming."

"Oh, Marco, tell him about your idea now!" Hannah laughs with excitement. Her laugh is unlike any other.

"Since Heichou gave us the day off," Marco starts.

Mina cuts in. "We thought it'd be fun if we had a little… competition of sorts?"

Nac grins. "So Marco suggested a prank war. It'll be great."

"I think we should team up," Mylius says, putting his feet up on the table. "Pranks on one another earns you a point per prank. Best prank on Heichou wins."

"Did I hear prank war?" Connie rushes into the room. "Count me in!"

"Heck yeah!" Sasha adds.

"You guys think you'll win." Mylius rolls his eyes. "Don't forget, Nac and I have a lot of tricks up our sleeves."

They grab the others (including a still-shaky Bertholdt) and discuss the rules of the challenge. Jean finds himself falling back into the flow of things. It's the same with the others, like they are back in their trainee days and the horrors they witnessed never happened.

"Nothing too messy," Annie says, looking pointedly at Sasha and Connie, who instantly sigh with defeat.

"Unless you're pranking Heichou," Mikasa adds. Annie can't argue with that.

They nod. "This is going to be great," Nac whoops.

-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-

"Okay, I've got an idea," Annie whispers. "I think it's about time Jaeger kissed someone. Ackerman will be so pissed."

Even Reiner looks terrified. "You're not going to have Eren kiss Mikasa, are you?"

Annie rolls her eyes. "No, he has to kiss someone else. That way, we take points from two teams with just one prank."

""Then who's it going to be?" Bertholdt asks.

"I'm thinking… Eren and Krista."

Bertholdt goes white as a sheet. "No. No way. I don't want to face the wrath of Mikasa  _and_ Ymir."

"They'll never know it was us. We'll prank them and they'll just...accidentally kiss."

Reiner rubs his forehead. This can't end well. "Fine. I don't have any better ideas. Let's hurry before someone decides to prank us instead."

So they get the string and the confetti. "Okay, they're coming," Reiner hisses, and they all pile into the closet, crowding around the window to get a good look.

"This prank is going to be great," Eren grins, practically skipping down the hall.

Armin resists the urge to roll his eyes. "Well, if you keep talking about it then  _someone_  is going to overhear us."

Mikasa hushes them. "I can see Ymir, Krista, and Mina coming."

Eren ignores her. "I can't wait to see the look on - whoa!"

The trio hidden in the closet pulls the strings they're holding, making Eren and Krista trip and fall. Thanks to perfect timing, their lips end up pressed together as confetti explodes from the ceiling.

"Oops," Bertholdt whispers. "I forgot that it shouldn't be messy."

Krista squeaks with surprise and Eren leaps away as fast as he can. Both faces are red as titan blood.

"I-I'm sorry!" Eren sputters. "It was an accident!"

"Jaeger," Ymir growls, stepping forward. "You're  _dead_."

Mina grabs Ymir's arm before she can tear Eren apart. "Don't worry. We'll get them back."

Eren stares at them with fear, and sprints out of the hallway, running for his life.

-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-

"I was only half joking." The blood drains out of Jean's face, but Marco just keeps talking like nothing happened. "See, we put a half cup of flour, mix it with water, and voila!"

"Gluing down Heichou's teapot is like… a death sentence." Thomas replies doubtfully.

"We're half dead already," Marco jokes. "No, but seriously, it'd be funny!"

"Okay fine," Jean grumbles. "Let's go."

They tiptoe into the kitchen, barely missing into Sasha and Connie, who are carrying a very suspicious looking burlap sack.

"Go go go!" Thomas whispers. They grab the measuring cups, flour, and water and do a bit of quick mixing. Jean washes the stuff they used and puts them back where they belong while Marco and Thomas carefully apply the glue to the bottom of the teapot.

"I feel like we should be in a TV show or something," Thomas mutters.

Marco almost laughs out loud. "I feel like that would kind of weird. TV shows are strange. I read about this one once. It was called Two and a Half Men. Interesting show."

"There," Thomas grins triumphantly, sticking the teapot exactly where they found it. "You can't even tell."

"What are you guys doing?"

They all freeze and slowly turn around.

"Petra!" Thomas exclaims. "U-uh, we're not doing anything."

She raises an eyebrow. "Are you hungry? I can get you something…"

"Nope, we're good," Jean grabs his friend and drags them out of the kitchen.

"Wow, no need to pull so hard," Marco mumbled, rubbing his arm. "Almost ripped my arm out of its socket."

"That was terrifying," Thomas breathes. "My legs were shaking so hard I'm not sure I can feel them anymore."

"Tell me about it." Suddenly feeling a bit devious, Jean whispers, "I guess you could say we were...Petrafied."

-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-

Levi is peacefully minding his own business, reading through the Sina Times newspaper. Today is a good day. The brats haven't made too much noise, and everything is good.

Just then, Petra runs in, panicked.

"What's wrong, Petra?"

"It's your teapot," she blurts. "I can't move it!"

Panic rises into his eyes and he rushes down to the kitchen at the speed of light. Sure enough, the teapot is glued to the cabinet.

"Those brats," he snarls. "This has to be them!"

Petra sighs. "Well, I guess we have no choice."

Levi pauses in his rage and raises an eyebrow. "What do you mean?"

She smirks deviously. "We'll just have to get them back."

Oh, it's on.

-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-

"Shh!" Sasha hisses. "They're in the next room."

"Okay," Connie replies. "You've got the chocolate?"

She holds up the bag and grins. "Check!"

They tiptoe to the bathroom. It's clean, sparkling, and it's about to become Levi's worst nightmare.

Sasha takes out two brushes and a giant pot of chocolate (don't ask how they got it you don't want to know).

"Hurry!" Connie grabs a brush, closes the door and locks it.

They brush chocolate on everything. Shower curtains, spigots, even the toilet.

"Heichou's going to have a heart attack when he sees this," Connie grins.

Sasha high-fives him. "Mission accomplished."

"Man, we'd better get this chocolate washed off before we run into someone," Connie groans, looking at his messy hands and clothing.

But as soon as they open the door, a flurry of feathers falls from the ceiling, coating them from head to toe.

Nac and Mylius roll on the floor with laughter. Sasha and Connie look like shedding chickens.

Just then, Hannah and Franz walk by. Hannah almost chokes, unable to hold back her laughter.

"Hey look," Franz grins. "It's the lovebirds. Literally."

"Says you!" Connie retorts.

"Lovebirds?" Sasha shrieks. "We are not!"

Mylius smirks. "Are you sure? Maybe you're just in denial."

Sasha grabs a brush (still dripping with chocolate) and chucks it at him. He whoops and dodges it.

"Hannah! Franz! Help us!" Nac shouts, throwing them a bottle of...something.

Hannah grabs the bottle and squeezes it, coating Sasha and Connie in sticky honey. She squeaks and covers her mouth. She feels bad, but it's still funny.

"You're so dead, Zeramuski!" Sasha shouts, chasing after Mylius with a brush.

-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-

"I've got the perfect prank for Heichou."

Before Armin can continue, Eren holds up a hand. "No, Armin."

Armin protests. "I didn't even say-"

" _No_."

"You're obsessed with the Laptop, it's obvious that's what your plan involves," Mikasa says.

"Only because it's such a great resource," Armin defends. "No, but really guys. It's a great plan. He's not going to see anything online. Just the sight of the Laptop makes him want to explode. It's pretty funny. I know we said that we should keep the Laptop a secret but...I think it's time the Laptop strikes back."

Unable to hold back his curiosity, Eren asks, "Fine. What are you thinking of?"

Armin whispers his plan to the group. Meanwhile, Mina, Ymir, and Krista are peering in on the trio.

"Good," Ymir grins. "They've got the Laptop. Now for the next phase of the plan." She saunters into the room. "So, Eren, how was your first kiss?"

Eren freezes and hides behind Mikasa. "I told you it was an accident!" His voice is a higher pitch than usual.

"Oh, I'm not mad," Ymir says. "I just want to show you something. Can I see the Laptop?"

"U-uh, okay." Armin hands over the device.

Ymir types a couple things, then hands the Laptop back to Armin. "See you guys later," she smirks.

"A video?" Eren wonders. "What's… Abridged on Titan?"

Mikasa raises an eyebrow. "Reiner's...shaft?"

In a few moments, they understand. At first, no one says anything, just watches with mixed horror and disbelief. The girls watching outside the door start to laugh. Ymir even cackles a little bit.

"I'M NOT GAY!" Eren rages.

"AND I'M NOT A GIRL!" Armin adds.

Mikasa does say anything at all, for once. "Um," Krista whispers. "I think we broke Mikasa…" Without another word, the three of them tiptoe away, only to burst into gasping laughter when they reach the bottom of the stairs.

"We have to get them back." Eren mutters. "We have to get them all back."

"Armin," Mikasa says slowly. "Let's use your plan."

-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-

Levi stands in the hallway, calmly waiting for Petra to return. He's going to get his revenge on those brats. They've stepped over the line one too many times.

Just then, he hears a curious noise. When he turns to see that nothing's there, he narrows his eyes and returns to his previous position. Must have been his imagination.

But then he hears it again. Getting louder and louder the more he listens to it.

"What the hell is that?" he snarls.

A flash of silver and blue. Barely a glimpse, but he immediately knows what it is.

Rushing up to his office (ignoring the sticky honey in the hallway), he checks the safe, and sure enough… the Laptop is gone.

"NOOOOOOO!" he roars.

At the corner of his eye, he sees the Laptop again, and then it disappears from the door frame, traveling down the hallway. He leaps up and follows it, but it slides barely out of his reach. Taunting him, gleefully turning corners.

"Not again," he growls, gritting his teeth.

The Laptop keeps traveling, and Levi keeps chasing. It's faster than an aberrant titan.

"Captain…?" Petra asks, confused, as he whips past her. "Wait! Levi! Stop!"

He manages to catch the Laptop and throw it out the window, but then trips down the stairs and right into a giant tub of ice water.

Petra bursts into giggles. "I told you to stop!"

"Don't laugh," he grumbles.

"Sorry," she laughs. "I can't help it." The water is supposed to be for the cadets, but obviously that didn't happen…

Well…at least he killed some titans.


	17. For Huge Manatee

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The 104th does the ice bucket challenge.

It's just one of those lazy days, days when you can just sit around and do nothing without worrying about Levi taking off your head.

But of course, if you're Hanji Zoe...there is never a dull day.

The cadets are lounging around in the mess hall, some playing video games, others eating, and generally sitting around doing nothing. They still haven't been able to explain the mysterious reincarnations of so many people, but the others have pretty much just accepted it.

The day is suddenly interrupted by Hanji's familiar laugh.

The sound of it is terrifying enough (because the reasons for it ranges from Levi's bad jokes to someone being decapitated) and the cadets immediately look up in fear.

Hanji runs into the mess hall, Titan PET in hand. Moblit (as always) follows close behind but this time there's a slight smile on his face too.

"Oh man, you simply have to watch this!"

Raising an eyebrow, the cadets crowd around the tablet screen. Hanji presses play.

"Good afternoon," Erwin Smith announces. "I was nominated by Commander Dot Pixis for this...ice bucket challenge."

"Commander Erwin's doing the ice bucket challenge?" Armin grins.

"What's that?" Eren asks.

"You'll see."

"I nominate Nile Dawk, Hanji Zoe, and Levi Ackerman for this challenge," Erwin continues. "You have twenty-four hours!"

Then a giant bucket of ice water is dumped over his head.

Sputtering, Erwin brushes his dripping hair out of his eyes. He feels cold from eyebrows to boots.

"DO IT!" he shouts. "FOR HUGE MANATEE!"

"Did he just say...huge manatee?" Connie wonders.

Mikasa rolls her eyes. "I think he meant humanity."

"Or he's crazy," Sasha jokes.

"Possibly both," Eren adds.

"So Hanji," Mina grins, "you're going to do the ice bucket challenge right?"

"Of course!" Hanji shouts enthusiastically. "Where's the ice?"

Sasha leaps up. "I'll get the ice!"

"I'll go grab the others," Reiner says.

Soon, they're all gathered outside the building. Moblit is holding the ice bucket, and Franz is filming.

"HEY PEOPLE! I was nominated by Erwin Smith to do this ice bucket challenge!" Hanji pumps her fist in the air. "I nominate Moblit, Nifa, and Armin!"

"Okay! Here goes!"

Normal people, when dumped with ice water, would have some reaction. But Hanji is no normal creature. She throws out her arms and embraces the cold water, spinning around and plopping down on the grass in the end, ice surrounding her.

"You're next, Armin," Jean smirks, nudging him.

Armin shifts uncomfortably. "Well...it's for a good cause…"

Five minutes later, they've got another bucket of water and camera set up.

"I was challenged by Squad Leader Hanji for the ice bucket challenge," Armin announces. "I'm challenging Eren Jaeger, Mikasa Ackerman, and Jean Kirschtein. You guys better do it."

He takes a deep breath and pours the bucket of water over his head.

"Ah!" he shouts. "That's...r-really, really c-cold."

Everyone laughs, and then suddenly:

"WHAT THE HELL?"

They turn around (Annie with the camera) to find a drenched Eren and Jean, holding an empty bucket.

"Oh man, Jaeger, you should have seen your face!"

"You won't want to see your face when I'm done with you!"

Mina sighs. "Looks like they're at it again…"

Marco smiles slightly. "I've come to ignore it. There's nothing I can do about it anyways. Just let them run it out."

And so it continues. The video of Armin's (and Eren's, technically) ice bucket challenge gains over 5,000 notes on tumblr. When Jean does his challenge, Eren, Mylius, and Nac dump multiple buckets of water on him. There's a lot of screaming afterwards. Jean challenges Marco, Mylius, and Nac. Eren challenges Reiner, Bertholdt, Sasha, and Connie.

"Just dumping water on yourself is lame," Sasha complains. "I'm gonna spice it up a bit!"

Ymir rolls her eyes. "Please tell me you aren't putting actual spices in the water…"

"What if you and Connie had a competition?" Krista suggests. "The first person to dump water on the other wins."

Slowly, a smile creeps up Sasha's face. "Krista...you're brilliant." And then she runs off.

"You can be pretty devious, Krista," Ymir smirks.

She just winks and waits for the mass chaos to unfold.

-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-

"Connie Springer, prepare to die!" Sasha shrieks.

"In your dreams!" Connie laughs and runs away. "Geez, what a sore loser."

Sasha chases after him, water splashing on the ground. "You're not even wet!"

He glances over his shoulder. "Well, I think I'll let the ground take the ice bucket challenge for me instead."

"What?" Sasha glances down to see the water all over the floor. "Aw, crap."

"Ha! Have fun cleaning that up!"

"Oh, no way!"

"Just get married already," Jean groans. The shouting is grating on his nerves.

Marco laughs. "I can't even imagine how chaotic their house would be if that happened."

Mina laughs, camera becoming unsteady as her body shakes. "Oh gosh, that would be hilarious."

Throughout the day, the challenge bounces through the Scouting Legion. Even Mikasa gets her own personal ice bath, courtesy of Eren and Armin, who were the only ones who can make her do it without being castrated.

Levi on the other hand...keeps his door locked the entire day.

"We need to get Heichou to do it," Thomas sighs.

"I would pay to see that," Mylius grins.

"You wanna be the one to dump a bucket of water on him?" Annie raises an eyebrow challengingly.

Nac raises a hand. "I would totally do it."

"Same!" Sasha grins.

Franz snorts. "Good luck getting him out of his office."

"Challenge accepted," Connie says, narrowing his eyes at Sasha. They're still mad at each other. Sasha eventually managed to get him wet, but Connie left her to be yelled at by Levi for getting water everywhere.

"Hold up!" Eren shouts before everyone else decides to shout. "If we're going to do this, we're going to have to work together."

"I agree," Armin nods.

"Good point." Reiner crosses his arms. "I'm in."

Armin smiles. "I'm going to need some rope, chocolate, ice and water of course, and a  _lot_  of bleach."

-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-

Bertholdt groans, mentally crying over the amount of laundry Levi will make him do after this fiasco.

Not to say that it isn't a brilliant idea. But still...laundry sucks.

"Sasha and Connie, you guys take the hallways," Jean directs. "Nac and Mylius will take the bathrooms."

They nod and run off with giant burlap sacks.

Reiner, Marco, Thomas, and Franz work together to dump ice into the water. Bertholdt would have helped but they didn't want him to melt the ice because of how sweaty he always is.

Meanwhile, some of the girls are perched in the rafters, setting up cameras. The others are working on setting up the trap.

"I think it's ready," Armin grins, admiring the beauty of his creation.

"This has got to be the most ridiculous thing we've ever done."

Suddenly, they hear Hanji's familiar voice. "What are you kids do-oh.  _Oh._ " She starts laughing. "Brilliant. Do you need my help?"

Armin glances at his friends. "Actually...we would love your help."

-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-

Levi groans when he hears a knock on the door. If Hanji talks to him about that stupid ice bucket challenge one more time…

"What?" he growls.

"Oh don't be such an old man. I'm not here to talk to you about donating money to a good cause and dumping water on yourself."

Sighing, Levi opens the door.

"Ah, there's that lovely face. So, anyways, Petra was wondering-"

He cuts her off. "Wait. What is that?"

"Hm?"

She never gets a chance to answer because he flies past her, Kneeling down, he examines the culprit. Chocolate. Sure enough. Those brats…

He runs to the bathroom to look for the bleach, but to his horror, all of his cleaning supplies are gone, and the bathrooms are covered in chocolate as well.

In a panic, he sprints down the hall, but all he sees is chocolate  _everywhere_. And then a quick flash of white.

There! He runs towards it. His precious bleach. And all of his other cleaning supplies as well.

He barely notices that he tripped over a rope until he finds himself falling. Down the stairs and face-first into a giant tub of ice cold water.

Naturally, the video goes viral on the internet.


	18. One Pairing to Rule Them All

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Levi receives some unexpected guests...

It's a quiet day in the Survey Corps, quite rare for people with their profession. Levi's happily admiring the extremely shiny mirrors he  _just_ cleaned, when suddenly…

"HEY BIG BRO! GUESS WHO'S HERE?"

And all hell breaks loose.

-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-

Hanji finds Levi sitting at his desk that night, face first in the stack of papers that he was apparently signing.

"Those brats," he growled, "will be the death of me."

She laughs. "Oh come on, Levi, everyone enjoys a nice family visit."

As much as he loves his surrogate family however...he still feels the urge to punch holes in the wall.

"I never know Isabel and Eren would get along so well," Hanji continues. "And Farlan gave Connie a run for his money. Sasha was laughing so hard I thought she was going to die."

Levi just sits there and makes strangled noises into his paperwork.

In response, Hanji ruffles his hair, but he's so frustrated he doesn't even think about how disgusting her hands are.

"I'm considering throwing myself to the titans," he finally mutters.

"Speaking of titans, have I ever mentioned how hot the Colossal Titan is?"

" _Shut up,_  Hanji."

-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-

"Oh man, you've got to show me this laptop." Isabel's laugh resonates through the mess hall.

Eren and Armin look at each other. Armin shakes his head no but Eren vehemently disagrees.

"Just let her see it," Mikasa says. "It'll be worth seeing Heichou's face."

Farlan smirks. "This is gonna be good, I can already tell."

"So how did you find this brilliant thing?" Isabel turns the silver laptop around, examining every inch of it.

"That's a good question…" Sasha trails off. "Wait, Eren, how  _did_  you find it?"

"What?" Eren blinks. "Um, it was too long ago...I don't remember…"

Jean opens his mouth to make fun of Eren's goldfish memory, but suddenly the door slams open (again) and none other than Commander Erwin Smith walks through the door.

"GOOD AFTERNOON, CADETS!" he shouts, (very majestic) eyebrows furrowing authoritatively.

They all stumbled into a salute, everyone tripping over one another.

"GOOD AFTERNOON, COMMANDER HANDSOME!"

Everyone turns and stares at Isabel, who laughs and says, "What? The name is perfect!"

Erwin raises a (very fabulous) eyebrow. "Isabel Magnolia and Farlan Church...I didn't expect to see you here." For a moment, Armin swears Erwin looks sad.

Farlan smiles. "It's good to see you again, Commander."

"If I may ask sir," Franz says, "what is the purpose of your visit today?"

Erwin gives him a small smile (which turns out kinda creepy) and replies, "Just an inspection, nothing to worry about. The Military Police is always watching."

Marco perks up at the mention of the MP. If it had been Nile Dawke instead of Erwin standing in front of them, Marco might have fainted by now.

"But first," Erwin continues, "Magnolia, Church, I would like to speak with you.

As they follow him out the door, Isabel turns around and makes a face, miming her head being cut off.

-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-

"What did you need to discuss with us, Commander?" Farlan asks politely.

Erwin crosses his arms. "It is a matter of great importance. As you know, working in the Survey Corps does not leave room for...romantic endeavors."

Isabel raises an eyebrow. "Are you trying to get my big bro laid?"

"I thought he had something with Hanji? Or that Petra chick?"

"Nah," Isabel shakes her head. "Hanji's taken."

"By who?" Erwin asks. This perks his interest. That wasn't exactly what he was going to talk to them about...but this is ten times more interesting.

"She has an unhealthy obsession with," Isabel pauses for dramatic effect, then raises her voice, "THE COLOSSAL TITAN." She shrieks with laughter.

Unbeknownst by the adults in the room, Annie and Mina are standing by the door, sent by the 104th to find out what Erwin is talking to Isabel and Farlan about.

Mina almost lets out a long-time suppressed laugh, but Annie slaps a hand over her mouth. Eventually she just gives up and the two of them return to the mess hall. This conversation isn't interesting anyway. Well...that's a lie...but the talk of Hanji and the Colossal Titan is making her sick (even though it is funny).

Mina runs back to the mess hall, wheezing with laughter. Thomas raises an eyebrow. "Mina...are you okay?"

In between gasps, Mina blurts, "Squad Leader...Hanji...has a crush...on the Colossal Titan!"

Bertholdt chokes on his water and Reiner pounds him on the back to keep him from dying.

"Where did you hear  _that_?" Mylius asks.

"That's what Isabel said!" Mina replies, still shaking with laughter.

Meanwhile, the conversation with the three shippers continues…

Farlan makes a face. "That is so weird."

"You're just not open-minded enough," Isabel retorts, glaring.

"You're shipping people.  _With titans._ "

"Not all titans...just titan shifters. Like Eren. I've got to say he's pretty hot as a titan…"

Farlan groans. "Isabel, you're at least ten years older than him!"

"So? Age doesn't matter. How about Levi and Eren, eh?" Isabel snickers. "I've heard that it's a pretty popular 'ship' as people on the Internet call it."

Throwing up his hands, Farlan replies, "Fine. Go rant to Hanji about your titan fetishes. I'm out."

He turns to leave, but then Erwin coughs loudly. "I don't know about you two, but my OTP is," he looks around and quietly whispers the names under his breath.

Isabel squeals. "IT'S PERFECT! I SHIP IT, I SHIP IT!"

"You ship everything!" Farlan protests.

"ALL THE SHIPS!"

-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-

During dinner, Hanji marches into the mess hall, tablet in hand and Moblit close behind. The cadets watched, confused, as she runs around with a tape measurer, asking people to stand up, etc.

"What are you doing Hanji?" Nac asks. "And why…?"

"FOR SCIENCE!" Hanji replies eagerly, but that is all she says.

"Hey, Bertholdt," Thomas asks, concerned, "are you okay? You look kind of pale."

Bertholdt swallows hard. "Uh...um.." he stutters.

Reiner elbows his friend. "Yeah, he's fine. Probably just tired, right Bert?"

The tall cadet nods awkwardly and becomes very interested in the potatoes sitting on his plate.

Then, Isabel waltzes into the room, a sprig of...something in her hand. She giggles and pulls Farlan along, moving towards where Eren is sitting.

Suddenly Farlan trips and falls, knocking Isabel over and causing whatever she has in her hand to fly through the air. It lands on Bertholdt's head.

Next to him, Hanji blinks. "Well, it's a little early for mistletoe...but I cannot deny the laws of nature."

She gives him a big kiss on the cheek and goes on her merry way.

And Bertholdt faints.

-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-

"Darn it, our plan failed!" Isabel groans, aimlessly surfing the internet.

Farlan rolls his eyes. "It was a dumb plan anyways."

"You agreed with it."

"No, I just went along with it to watch you fail."

"Whatever, Farlan, it's obvious you ship it too!"

"I do not! Levi-"

Fate decreed that Levi would pass by at that exact moment. He would overhear the conversation and see Isabel with the laptop, therefore jumping to conclusions.

I think we all know what happens next.

"NO! BIG BRO! I WILL GO DOWN WITH THIS SHIP!"


	19. Stayin' Alive

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Eren goes crazy.

" _Wake up you brat."_

" _Heichou! Don't dump water on him!"_

" _I've got a better idea."_

" _Wow, Marco, didn't know you had it in you."_

" _You don't know a lot about me, Franz."_

" _Don't give me that look Mina!"_

" _Clearly, my idea is better."_

" _In your dreams, Mylius."_

"Eren? Eren! Wake up!"

Eren groans. "Leave me alone, Mikasa," he mutters into his pillow.

"I'm not Mikasa," Armin rolls his eyes. "Unless you want me to imitate her. I can definitely come after you with an axe."

"No! I'm up!" Eren shoots up from bed, knocking heads with Armin.

"Ow!"

"What are you two doing?" Speak of the devil… "Eren? Why are you crying?"

The brunette realizes that there is indeed a tear sliding down his cheek, but instead of telling Mikasa it's because he knocked his head against Armin's forehead he makes up a lame excuse.

"Uh...I don't remember…?"

Okay so maybe that hit messed with his brain a little bit.

She immediately comes over to examine the slight bruise on his forehead. "How did this happen? Did-" she pauses and glowers. "Did Heichou come and bully you again?"

"What? No! Mikasa, I'm fine."

"Stop protecting him, I don't know why you still do." And with that, she marches out with fury. You could see the trail of smoke she leaves behind.

"We gotta stop her, Armin."

Armin rubs his head. "I don't know about you, but I'm just going to sit back and enjoy the show."

Eren groans. This couldn't end well for him.

"I'm going to get some ice," Armin starts to walk out the door. "Do you want some?"

"Yeah...I'll come with you." Eren quickly puts on his shoes and follows his blonde friend out the door. He almost gets trampled by Sasha and Connie in the hallway.

"I just saw Mikasa run this way," Sasha exclaims as they run past. "Something good's gonna happen!"

"Oh no," Eren sighs. "I'm just hoping Petra will be able to calm the two of them down. She has that effect on people. Or Isabel..."

Armin pauses on the way down the stairs.

"Um, Eren? Are you sure you didn't hit your head too hard?"

"No? I feel fine. Why?"

"Because," Armin looks pained. "Petra Ral...and Isabel Magnolia are dead."

-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-

"No! I swear! They were here! All of them! Mina, Nac, Hannah, everyone!"

Everyone just stares at him.

"I think he's actually gone crazy," Annie mutters.

"I'll say," Ymir snorts.

"Do you need more sleep?" Krista asks. "Obviously your memory is messing with you again."

"Jean!" Eren shouts, turning to the cadet. "Marco! Marco was here!"

Everyone grows silent and stares at Jean, who immediately turns red with anger.

"Did you really just say that, Jaeger?"

"Okay, time to go," Armin pulls Eren out of the mess hall. "Eren! You know that Marco's death is still a sore topic," he chided in a whisper. "You can't just go around saying things like that. Even more so with Heichou's squad. And his dead family."

Eren refuses to be silenced. "I swear! Marco and the others were here just last night! We all sat in the mess hall playing games and hanging out. Marco won like half of the rounds, I swear that guy is good."

Armin groans. "Eren, stop. I'll help you figure this out, just  _please_  quiet down. They're dead. There's no way they would come back."

"Fine." Eren stomps back into the mess hall with Armin behind him and grudgingly apologizes to the others.

"Asshole," Jean growls, stomping out of the room.

Later that day, Eren is still just as confused as he was that morning. Mikasa is nowhere to be found, which was kind of a good thing, because if she gets wind of Eren's "hallucination"...well who knows what would happen.

He brushes past Reiner in the hallway, who mutters, "Jerk," under his breath as he passes.

Later on, he rushes into Hanji's office shouting, "Hey, Hanji, have you seen Petra?"

Hanji looks stricken. "No...of course not. Why would you ask something like that?"

Moblit sighs and shakes his head.

Eren groans.  _I really am going crazy...what if I start doing other weird things?_

There was only one thing left to do...Eren takes the Laptop and begins searching the Internet for answers.

He doesn't find anything. He does find some cute cat videos though. Sighing, he starts to surf Tumblr. It doesn't look like any of his friends are going to talk to him. He's never been called an asshole so many times in one day. And that's saying a lot.

"Hey look, a new message," Eren mumbles, trying to muster up some excitement.

The message turns his blood to ice. And not because it's another Ereri shipper, or a crazy anon telling him how hot they think he is. No. This is far, far worse.

_Eren -_

_Hope you enjoyed my gift._

_I.H._

The last time Eren screamed this loud and this high pitched, he was a little boy rescuing Mikasa from her captors.

Mikasa rushes in at titan-shifter speed.

"Eren! What's wrong?"

Eren helplessly gestures at the laptop, unable to form words.

"I knew that shorty did something again!" Mikasa growls. Then she proceeds to march out of the room and kick Levi in the balls.


	20. 12 Days of Levi-mas

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's Levi's birthday! Oh no....

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy Holidays everybody! :)

"Merry Christmas!" Hanji bursts into the dormitories, throwing wrapped packages onto the cadets' beds and singing off-key.

Jean groans into his pillow, trying to block out the noise. "I was hoping to be able to sleep in today," he shouts angrily.

"Sorry, Jean," Armin looks down at him, rubbing his eyes wearily. "Guess none of us are sleeping in."

"Merry Christmas everybody," Connie mutters, rolling onto the ground.

Sasha suddenly comes barreling into the room. "Get up, Springer!"

"What? Why? Gah! Get off, Sasha!"

"Oh...oops." Sasha giggles at the sight of Connie tangled up in his blankets. "Hurry up! We've got a feast to prepare!"

"How am I supposed to hurry," Connie's voice is muffled, "when you got me all tangled up in these blankets?"

Jean rolls his eyes and climbs out of bed, walking over to help Connie. "Idiots, all of you."

Armin laughs.  _I'm glad I can spend Christmas with everybody,_  he smiles happily.

Above him, Eren groans and mutters a couple curses.

"Come on, Eren," Armin persuades, "Don't be a Scrooge. It's Christmas!"

Muffled by a pillow, Eren says, "No, you don't understand Armin. Christmas is the worst day of the year!"

His blonde friend raises an eyebrow questioningly. "Why is that?"

That's when the door slams open. "Get up, brats."

"Oh, come on Heichou!" Sasha protests. "It's Christmas!"

"All the more reason for this place to smell of bleach, Braus," Levi growls and fixes them all with a glare. "The Commander is coming and I want this place to be spotless. And if I spot one drop of alcohol...you're all dead."

"Yes, Heichou," they sigh dejectedly.

"Who's the real Scrooge now?" Eren groans.

"I'm sure Heichou will still let us celebrate the holiday," Armin encourages.

"I wouldn't count on it," Eren replies. "And I wouldn't dare protest...we have to do everything he says today."

"Why?" Connie asks, finally free of the blanket cocoon.

"Because it's his birthday."

-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-

"Oh, I wish I had known!" Krista sighs. "I would have gotten him a gift."

"It's our one chance to get on his good side," Reiner jokes.

Luckily for them, the HQ doesn't need much more cleaning except a couple scrubs here and there, so they're done before lunch. Sasha, Connie, and Jean immediately get to work cooking up a feast, and the rest of them are resigned to sitting by the kitchen, taking in the amazing smells.

"If you ask me, Heichou's even grumpier on his birthday than normal," Ymir mutters. "That's saying a lot."

"Probably because he's so old," Annie smirks. "How old do you think he is?"

Bertholdt sighs. "Please don't…"

"Old as  _balls_ ," Reiner smirks.

"We should get him gifts," Krista cuts in. "Maybe it would make his birthday more enjoyable."

"Probably not," Mikasa scoffs.

"Let's do it," Eren shrugs. "We don't have too many options though...his birthday is today…"

"Hey, don't leave us out of it!" Sasha protests from the kitchen.

"Calm down, Sasha," Reiner responds. "How about this. We'll all prepare a gift for Heichou and present them to him tonight. We can give whatever we can scrounge up."

A smirk spreads across Ymir's face. "I like the sound of this."

Krista sighs. "Oh dear."

-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-

Armin heads straight towards the library, realizing that all the others are probably going to give...interesting gifts, so he might as well get Levi something nice for once. Mikasa on the other hand, is contemplating whether or not she should try and slip poison into her fellow Ackerman's tea.

Meanwhile, Eren paces around the hallway, wondering what the heck he's going to do.

_What would Heichou want anyways?_  He grumbles. The best gift he could give Levi would probably to destroy the Laptop, but  _that's_  not happening.

Then, suddenly, he gets an idea. Funny how the Laptop can be helpful sometimes.

Eren runs to Hanji's laboratory. "Hanji!" he pants. "Could I borrow one of your burners?"

She doesn't even ask what he needs it for, and lets him take it. Time to put his plan to action.

At the same time, the three designated cooks of the day are arguing in the kitchen.

"Why do we need  _thirteen pies_?" Jean demands.

"Well, then there's one pie for everyone!" Sasha grins, counting off all the people on her fingers. "It should be fourteen actually, but I know Heichou doesn't really like sweets."

"This is wasting my time," Jean mutters, angrily sealing up another pie. "And I had such a great gift idea too."

"What was it? Hay?" Connie snickers.

"Shut up, Springer, of course not."

"Sorry, Horseface, we thought you'd have time, since we've already completed  _our_  devious plan," Sasha smirks deviously.

Jean refuses to let them psych him out. "Does it involve pie?"

"Perhaps," Sasha winks. Then the doorbell rings and Sasha jumps up. "Ooh, there it is!"

They quickly put the last of the pies into the oven and rush into the hallway. Connie throws open the door and cackles. Jean tries to get a good look at it, but Sasha blocks his view.

"Oh no you don't, Kirschstein. Get your own ideas!"

He huffs and walks away. "Whatever, losers. I'm outta here."

With much effort, Sasha and Connie manage to haul their crate of...whatever it is, into the hallway. They high five each other.

"I'm going to enjoy this," Connie grins.

Unfortunately for them, Ymir and Krista are watching the two mischief makers haul their contraband up the stairs. Connie and Sasha leave it in a closet, and when they leave to check on the pies, Ymir and Krista swoop in to see what it is.

"No way," Ymir breathes. "Where in Maria did they get booze?"

"What do we do?" Krista wrings her hands nervously.

Ymir grins. "I say we let them give it to him. I'd like to see what our dear Heichou is like drunk."

By the time the timer signals that the pies are done...everything is ready.

-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-

Dinner is an...interesting affair. In more ways than one. The food looks delicious, the adults talk about politics, and the cadets whisper about dessert. And they aren't just talking about the pie.

Levi looks extremely irritated when Armin announces that the eleven of them have all prepared gifts.

"Make that twelve!" Hanji grins, waving her cup in the air. "I've got a gift for our dear Levi as well!"

"Great," Levi mutters. "Happy birthday to me."

Armin is the first to go. He drew up a very nice picture of some unknown location outside of the walls. Levi is surprisingly touched, but obviously he doesn't show it.

Mikasa hands him a scarf, much to Levi's surprise, and he isn't sure if her gift actually contains a contraption that will choke him to death. But it's just a regular, green scarf that apparently she knitted that day. How? Because she's Mikasa freaking Ackerman.

"This better be good, Jaeger," Levi growls when Eren steps up.

The titan shifter is actually quite annoyed that Mikasa and Armin both showed him up, but he hopes that his gift will be alright as well.

"Soap?"

"Er, yeah. I made it myself," Eren says nervously.

"I'm flattered," Levi deadpans. "Next!"

In the course of the gift giving that night, he receives one pink bow tie (Kirschstein has a deadly sense of humor - deadly because Levi almost took off his head), two bottles of bleach, three bags of cat food for Captain Meow, four bags of tea, and five cravats.

"I told you he was going to get a cravat," Annie mutters. "You're a colossal idiot, Bert."

They have to drag him out of the mess hall, and Levi thinks that the best gift he could possibly get would be to leave this stupid place.

There is also a bottle of...something from Hanji. She claimed it's a great cleaning solution she devised, but Levi wonders what would happen if he poured it on a titan. It might melt.

"Tch. I guess I should thank you."

"Don't worry, Heichou!" Sasha and Connie sail into the mess hall, crate in tow. "We've got a gift that you're sure to love!"

Ymir snickers. "Here we go," she whispers to Krista. "Let's see how mad he gets."

Levi cracks open the crate apprehensively. For all he knows, they could have packed a titan head in here.

"Apple cider?"

The two of them grin.

"Taste it!" Sasha urges.

"Best stuff in Sina," Connie reassures. "I guarantee you'll like it."

Levi eyes it suspiciously. "Fine, I'll try it."

Ymir and Krista, meanwhile, are very confused.

"Maybe you mistook it?" Krista wonders.

"I swear it was booze," Ymir grumbles.

Levi takes his first drink of the cider. It's not bad, per say, but it has an odd quality to it. He decides he doesn't like it all that much - it gives him a nasty feeling in his throat.

Erwin raises one (fabulous) eyebrow. "Levi? Are you alright?"

"Perfectly fine, Erwin," Levi drawls. "You know what's not fine? Your eyebrows."

Turns out Levi is very much a lightweight.

He leaps up on the table, grabs one of Sasha's pies and proceeds to throw it. Right. At. Erwin's. Face.

Sasha shrieks with laughter. Armin, pushing his shock aside, pulls out his phone. It's too good to let his kind nature get in the way.

Another pie hits Hanji in the face. She is surprised, but happily so, laughing and cheering Levi on. "Look at your face, Erwin," she laughs.

The commander just sits and watches as Levi picks up two more pies and runs out of the room. Moblit chases after Hanji with a towel as she follows Levi, carrying two pies of her own.

"Squad Leader Hanji!" Moblit shouts. "You should get the pie off your face!"

"Nah, it's really good!" Hanji whoops.

Eren is the first of the cadets to be pied. He wipes pumpkin off his face and groans, wondering why he's always the first to suffer.

Levi has surprisingly good aim when he's drunk, because he manages to nail Mikasa in the face with a cherry pie.

"Now your face matches your scarf!" he sneers, running back to get more pie.

"This was a terrible idea," Annie hisses. She and three others are huddled outside, thinking they've escaped Levi's wrath there.

"No, it was a brilliant idea," Sasha grins. "No regrets!"

That's when Levi swoops by on his 3DMG and pies all of them. Somewhere along the line he put on a party hat and found the silly string stash Connie had in his room. Silly string showers down on them, covering their hair and faces until they're all just one giant sticky mess.

"I hate you." Reiner has to resist the urge to strangle Connie.

"We have to stop him," Bertholdt gasps in horror.

"We can't," Eren moans miserably. "It's his birthday."

"I do what I want!" Levi declares, flying overhead once again. Ymir swears she sees Captain Meow cling desperately to Levi's back.

"We're just going to have to wait until he runs out of pies," Jean mutters.

Connie and Sasha snicker until Mikasa pins them with a deadly glare. "If the midget doesn't kill you first, then I will."

The very last pie lands on a titan, one with a bushy white beard. It doesn't die, but it does have a strange appetite for apples from then on.


	21. Truth or Dare

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A classic game of Truth or Dare in the 104th squad...

"I'm boreeeed," Sasha grumbles.

"Then do something," Connie responds, unhelpfully. He's laying on the floor reading a magazine, trying to ignore his best friend.

Sasha narrows her eyes. "Who are you and what have you done with Connie?" she demands, leaping up. Normally, Connie's the first one to suggest they spray whip cream in Levi's mouth or something when they're bored.

"The Immortal Laptop got me," he drawls sarcastically. "Can't a guy lay around and be lazy for once?"

Sasha flops on the couch. "Ugh, I'm so boreeeddd. Heichou and Mikasa haven't had a competition in months, Eren hasn't done anything stupid, and even Jean's doing everything normally."

Her friend simply raises an eyebrow.

"Alright, as normal as Jean can get. Seriously though! We gotta...mix it up a bit."

"Like what? Make Heichou and Mikasa fight again? It's not even fun to bet on anymore...Heichou always wins."

"Shh! Don't say that she might hear!" Sasha hisses. Then she sighs. "Any new crack ships we can invent? Tumblr is crazy about that stuff."

"Lame," Connie deadpans. "What would we come up with, Eren and Jean?" He pauses. "Actually that'd be really interesting."

"Ha-ha," Sasha groans. "I'm so bored I would actually be willing to play truth or dare."

An eerie silence fills the room, and it's as if the world itself has stood still. You can't even hear the titans stomping in the background. Like everything has paused to witness the ridiculousness - or possibly brilliance - of this suggestion.

"Alright fine," Connie throws his magazine in the air. He's starting to get tired of seeing Nile Dawk's stupid face anyways. "Let's do it."

-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-

"Oh hell no," Jean growls when Sasha waltzes into the kitchen with a sinister smile on her face.

"She won't take no for an answer," Connie sighs.

"I think it might be fun," Krista shrugs.

"Me too," Armin agrees.

Jean and Eren stare at them in shock. Those two are at the top of their 'Least Likely to Play Truth or Dare' list.

"What?" Armin questions.

Eren coughs. "Nothing."

"Well let's go then!" Sasha grabs Armin's arm and drags him to the mess hall, where the others they have managed to coerce are waiting.

"This is stupid," Annie sighs.

"Agreed," Jean nods. The only time he ever agrees with Annie, to be honest.

Beside her, Reiner smirks. "I think it'll be interesting." He turns and whispers something in Jean's ear, which makes him turn red as a tomato.

"Let's do this," Jean mutters, sitting down on the floor.

"Alright!" Sasha squeals. "I'll go first. Ymir, truth or dare?"

Ymir, who is laying on the couch, looks over with mild interest. "Dare."

Sasha considers her options for a moment before saying, "I dare you...to kiss Krista."

Everyone stares, wondering if Ymir will actually do it, and she sits up with a bored expression and immediately does just that.

"I knew you were going to ask that," she said, laying back down. "Be more creative, will ya?"

As for Krista, her mouth lays slightly open, blush dusting her cheeks, but the shock soon disappears and she sits against the couch with a happy smile.

"Annie," Ymir drawls. "Truth or dare."

The blonde makes a small noise of distaste but responds. "Truth."

"What are you really hiding behind that ice cold gaze?" Ymir questions.

Bertholdt looks at his friend sharply, but Annie remains unfazed. "Who knows." She shrugs. "I could be plotting to kill all of you and you'd never know."

Her friends just about have a heart attack, but Ymir winks at her. "I like this one."

Annie's lips curl into her version of a smirk, before turning to scrutinize the other cadets. They all shudder at her gaze and pray to Sina they don't get picked. "Kirschstein. Truth or dare?"

Jean inwardly cringes but he's a manly man so he refuses to pick truth.

"Kiss Jaeger."

"WHAT?" Jean and Eren scream.

"I would never kiss him," Eren hisses, staring daggers at Jean's heart.

"Of course not, I'm too good for you," Jean shoots back.

"You wanna go, Kirschstein?"

"I'd beat you any day of the week, Jaeger!"

Their faces are inches apart as they scream insults at each other and everyone else sits by and watches.

Then Mikasa reaches over and pushes Eren's head forward just enough so that his lips touch Jean's for a millisecond. Steam shoots out of their ears as they leap away from each other coughing and spluttering.

The rest of the cadets stare at Mikasa in shock.

"What," she deadpans. "It shut them up."

"I wasn't actually going to make them kiss," Annie smirks. "Just wanted to see their reactions. This is perfect though."

If Annie and Mikasa had been sitting next to each other they probably would fist-bump.

When Jean and Eren return from washing out their mouths with Levi-Approved mouthwash ("I can't believe you, Mikasa," Eren grumbles), the game continues.

"Sasha," Jean spits. He wants his revenge for her making them play this stupid game. "Truth or dare?"

"Dare!" Sasha grins.

"I want you to see how many biscuits you can fit into your mouth. Without chewing."

"Challenge accepted."

Sasha runs up to grab her secret stash that everyone and their mother knows about and runs back.

"Start counting, Kirschstein." With the crinkle of cellophane, Sasha takes the first biscuit and puts it into her mouth. And another. And another. The others watch with mixed fascination as Sasha ate almost every single cracker in the roll.

"Twenty," Jean mutters. "You're insane."

"Told you I could do it." Sasha smirks. Somehow she manages to eat all of them without choking.

"Pay up Jean," Eren holds out his hand.

"Ugh, fine," Jean growls, slapping some money into Eren's hand.

"Alright, next!" Sasha grins. "Reiner! Truth or dare?"

Reiner smirks confidently. "Dare."

"I dare you to wear a lacy pink bra."

Annie almost spits out her water. "And where are we going to get that?"

Sasha reaches behind her. "Right here!" She hands a white box to Reiner, who opens it and breaks out laughing.

"Alright, Sasha. As you wish."

It's ridiculous because Reiner actually makes it look like the bra isn't out of place in the least. He even lets them snap a few pictures, with Annie rolling her eyes in the background and Bertholdt in pure shock.

Poor Bertholdt.

Once Reiner's back in his regular green shirt, the game continues. After all, the show must go on!

"Krista," he starts. "Truth or dare?"

Everyone expects her to pick truth, but none of them expected it when she fixes Reiner with a peculiar gleam in her eye and says, "Dare."

"I dare you...to go around talking like Ymir for the rest of the game."

Ymir snorts, and Krista's high-pitched laughter chimes through the hallway. When the laughter subsides, Krista clears her throat and brings her voice as low as it can go.

"I'll try my best, Reiner," she says. Turning to Connie, she asks, "Truth or dare?"

He almost loses it with her Ymir imitation. "Dare, believe it!" Connie exclaims. He's obviously been watching too much anime.

"I dare you to run around HQ naked."

"Oh my god, Krista!" Sasha shrieks. "You're brilliant but I'm also scared because I've never seen this side of you?"

Krista just shrugs innocently. "Dares are fun."

Ymir slings her arm around the blonde's shoulder. "That's the Krista I know and love!"

So Connie runs around the compound screaming at the top of his lungs like a titan, naked as the day he was born. Sasha almost passes out from laughing too hard.

For some reason, Levi hasn't shown up this whole time. Not that they're complaining…

"Okay," Connie plops down on the ground (with clothes on, thankfully). "That was surprisingly fun. Bertholdt, truth or dare?"

Bertholdt sweats. What should he choose? He doesn't want to run around HQ naked, nor does he want to reveal life secrets.

"Um, truth," he chooses.

Connie leans forward with mock seriousness, eyes dark. "What are you really hiding?"

Bertholdt looks to Reiner and Annie for support, but they've suddenly become really good at whistling and staring at the floor.

"Um...well I'm definitely not the Colossal Titan," he squeaks.

Blank stares. Annie facepalms. "Really Bert?" she mutters. "That's all you could think of?"

"Well," Connie laughs. "We know he's not lying!"

"He's an idiot," Annie sighs.

"A Colossal idiot," Reiner winks, feeling particularly devious.

And it's over. Bertholdt barely makes it out the door before he bursts out laughing - this is too much emotional strain for one day.

"Well, um," Sasha picks up the awkward silence. "Since Bertholdt's gone I'm gonna issue the next question. Any objections? No? Okay." She scans the room to see who hasn't gone yet.

"Mikasa! Truth or dare?"

It's not even a question. "Dare."

"Please prank, Heichou. Something good. Something he won't notice right away…"

Mikasa takes the pocket knife she carries around and runs her finger across the smooth edge. "I know exactly what to do."

"This is a terrible idea," Eren sighs.

For stealth purposes, they opt not to go with Mikasa on her adventure. When she returns, she smirks.

"What'd you do?" Sasha asks, leaning forward to get the scoop.

"I put a mouse in his desk."

"What?!" Eren screams. "Oh god he's gonna kill us."

"He'll never know it's us," Mikasa smiles. "And it might be a while before he notices."

"Brilliant," Sasha breathes. "High five!"

Mikasa does indeed raise her hand for a hearty high five, and her smile grows wider.

And last but not least… "Armin. Truth or dare?"

"Uh," Armin considers the odds. "Dare, I guess."

"Darn," Sasha mumbles to herself. She wanted Armin to reveal whatever secrets he knew about the Immortal Laptop. She hopes Mikasa picks a worthwhile dare."I dare you...to go prank Commander Erwin."

"Oh my god..." Armin sighs and stands up. "Guess I can't refuse."

Sasha rubs her palms together gleefully. This'll be good. And Connie's got the phone.

As the rest of the gang looks on, Armin knocks on the door of the Commander's office (Erwin happens to be in town for official Sina business).

"Come in," Erwin says.

"Um, sir," Armin nervously fidgets with his uniform. "I have something to say."

"What is it Armin?"

"Well…" Suddenly Armin's demeanor totally changes. He looks over at Eren with a wicked smile and the two of them burst into their theme song.

"Don't drop that durka durk," Eren begins.

"Eyyyyy!" Armin chimes in.

Then they chorus together, "Don't drop that durka durk!"

And Armin slams the door to Erwin's office and he and Eren run down the hallway laughing.

"I...can't believe that just happened," Reiner mutters.

"Didn't know Armin had it in him," Ymir agrees.

"I'm...scarred," Jean whispers.

Guess you should never trust the blondes. Ever.


	22. The Fourth Wall

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Survey Corps receives a lot of very unexpected visitors...

This morning, the sun is shining bright, birds are chirping and even the titans are silent. If you overlook the fact that Levi Ackerman is currently screaming for blood, it might even be a good day.

Levi storms around an empty castle; Hanji watches him run through the hallways, back and forth with bright buckets of water and bleach.

"What's going on?" she asks, not even trying to hide her amusement.

"Well, um," Moblit begins to explain. "This morning, Levi found a mouse in his desk. Evidently, it's been there for weeks, and it started to chew holes in his files, leaving droppings, and other...less than pleasant gifts."

"Oh!" Hanji throws up her hands and runs out the door. "I've got to stop him before he kills the poor thing."

Moblit sighs and follows. The mouse is better off dead, really - it would save it from a fate worse than death.

The cadets, for once, are no where to be found. Luckily for them, they happened to have special training with some of the Squad Leaders in the forest.

"Geez, what is that noise?" Jean mutters when they stops for a rest.

"What?" Eren snickers. "Are those horse ears picking up sounds we can't hear?"

"Shut up, Jaeger," Jean growls. "If you weren't  _deaf_  then you'd hear it."

The cadets calmly drink their water and sit in the silence of the forest. Seconds later, a strangled yell resonates through the trees.

Annie's hand pauses halfway to her mouth. "Was that...Heichou?"

"No way," Reiner scoffs.

"It sounded like him," Armin replies, confused.

"For someone with such short stature, he has some powerful lungs," Mikasa mumbles.

Mike sighs and signals for everyone to pack up their things and prepare to move back to HQ. "Guess I better go check things out."

Levi is still screaming when the cadets return, various curse words (coupled with Hanji's laughter) stream down from Levi's office.

Ymir raises an eyebrow and looks at Mikasa. "Wonder what's going on."

Mikasa simply lifts her scarf over her mouth, no doubt trying to hide a smile. "Who knows."

"Let's go check it out," Krista suggests. The others nod in agreement and creep up the stairs, occasionally dodging the stray sponge or brush that flies out of the door.

"Moblit!" Krista calls softly. "What's Heichou yelling about?"

Moblit sighs and walks over. "Levi found a mouse in his desk. He's now disinfecting his entire office and hunting down every mouse in the building."

"Geez," Connie mutters. "They don't call him Humanity's Greatest Soldier for nothing…"

Behind him, Mikasa  _snorts_ , immediately trying to cover it up, but it's not long before everyone else is laughing too. They laugh so hard that even the sight of a very pissed off Levi Ackerman can't calm them.

"You brats want to explain this?" he hissed.

Through her chuckles, Sasha replies, "It's just great that you're so dedicated to cleaning!"

"That's not what I meant, Braus," Levi growls. On better circumstances, he might even be flattered by her comment. "I know one of you brats did this. Who was it? Spit it out!"

They stay completely silent, and it is only broken by a sudden loud 'snap!' and a squeal.

"Tell me, or else you're going to end up like the mouse I just caught in that mouse trap," Levi snarls.

All the cadets glance at each other, wondering whose wrath they'd rather face - Levi's or Mikasa's. The Ackerman Family is terrifying, that's for sure, and either way they'd probably end up dead.

But Levi never gets to find out, because Hanji rushes out with a dead mouse cupped in her palms. "Levi!" she shouts. "I can't believe you killed it! I wanted a live specimen so badly!"

"What?" Levi makes a face of pure disgust. "I thought you were helping me clean, not collecting disgusting vermin."

"Well I was," Hanji says, holding the mouse by the tail. "But I also wanted to keep it alive!"

"It's dead," Levi hisses. "Throw. It. Away." Then he spins on his heel. "And you!" He throws various cleaning supplies at their heads, leaving them to scrambling to catch them. "I want every single disgusting creature out of this castle by nightfall."

"But Heichou!" they groan. After a long day of drills, cleaning is the last thing they want to do.

"Get to work!"

-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-

The moon is shining bright by the time they finish cleaning. Mikasa hasn't stopped celebrating her personal victory with the mouse, but the others are rather exhausted and annoyed by the whole ordeal.

Not that they're going to tell her that.

Nevertheless, they all gather in the dormitories for pre-sleep Tumblr surfing. Some of them are flopped on the bed, leaning over Armin's shoulder while he scrolls.

Because of their state of exhaustion, they end up falling asleep, the Laptop still open on Armin's lap, drool trickling down Connie's mouth.

A piercing scream sends birds scattering from the trees the next morning. It's almost enough to force Armin out of bed, but not quite.

And then he realizes he's not on his bunk. Instead, he opens his eyes to find Sasha running around in a panic, and the Immortal Laptop missing from his lap.

A quick mission by Annie and Mikasa to Levi's office reveals that he doesn't have it.

"There goes our most likely suspect," Ymir mutters.

"Maybe it's outside?" Bertholdt suggests. "Heichou apparently likes throwing things when he's angry…"

It's not outside either; no signs of titan remains or smoke anywhere. The Laptop seems to have...disappeared.

"This is a disaster," Sasha groans, rolling onto the floor. "And just when I needed to look something up!"

"You'll live," Jean drawls. "For now, we have bigger problems."

Just then, there was a loud knock at the door. The cadets looked at each other and walked down the stairs. Maybe it was mail.

To their surprise, when they open the door, it's Commander Erwin Smith, in all his glory, fabulous eyebrows and all.

"Good morning," he greets, inclining his head. "You're all here, good. I'd like to introduce you to a friend of mine."

They look at each other with a question in their eyes, and then Erwin steps aside to reveal a man carrying a black bag over his shoulder.

"This is my dear friend," Erwin says, "Isayama Hajime."


End file.
